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Christmas on the Islands Part I

Food to me is always about cooking and eating with those you love and care for

- David Chang

Being a nation that is predominantly Catholic, you can imagine just how important Christmas is to us Seychellois. Amongst the religious side to this holiday, family get togethers are a staple over the Christmas period.

Many Seychellois families like mine, traditionally celebrate with a Christmas Eve Dinner and Christmas Day Mass the next day. And Christmas Day is spent enjoying the leftovers!

In our family, it is my parents who host the Christmas Eve Dinner every year and for many years it has been my mother who was in charge of the preparations and cooking. I would always help out where I could when I was younger. It was my favourite time of the year being able to learn from probably one of my biggest influences when it comes to cooking: My Mother.

But for the last 8 or 9 years, I have have taken charge of the Christmas Eve Dinner as a gift to my Mother. My aim every year is to try to have a different menu which can be tough when there are certain dishes (but I change them up every year) that get requested by different members of the family.

We are a reasonably big family so on average, I am generally cooking for between 15 to 20 people.

Being so many we don't have a sit down meal but more of a mini buffet spread like meal. I do regret not writing down my previous years menus but generally an Albert Christmas Eve Spread is done in three parts: Starters, Mains & Sides and the most important Desserts.

Christmas 2017

Starters can range from salads, antipasti boards, something with prawns or smoked fish, chicken liver pate and of course glazed ham.

Mains & Sides must always include the Roast Turkey, Gravy and Stuffing but will include several of the following whole grilled fish, lasagna, roast leg of lamb, roast beef, salmon something with Brussels sprouts, beans, mushrooms or asparagus, some form of potatoes or rice and roasted vegetables.

Desserts can include cupcakes, Christmas Fruit Cake, cheesecakes, trifles, cookies and my Sister's favourite Christmas Chocolate Log (which can only be done when she's home for Christmas).

A lot of planning goes into my Christmas Eve Menu, I normally start planning around mid-November and generally consists of hours and hours on Pinterest and creating a secret board with many many recipe ideas.

Sometimes it opens up a rabbit hole because I end up pinning so many recipes that I most likely will never be able to do due to living in Seychelles and not having access to certain ingredients. Once I narrow down the recipes that I want to cook for this year and write them down and create my menu and then the menu has to be approved by my parents and sister (when she's home). Normally, there are a few changes as always because sometimes my choices are a little to far fetched for my dad's liking.

My next blog post will be about a few of the dishes that I prepared for Christmas this year, mainly the highlights of the meal.

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