Street Talk: What Is the Traditional Holiday Fare in Your Family?

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“Our traditional meal is Chicken Marengo or Pula Marengo. We first found it at the Pink Adobe restaurant in Santa Fe where I took Leslie on our first date. Six years later, I took her back there … with our son Dakota who was 18 months old, and we had it again. We bought the cookbook and have been having it ever since. It’s basically chicken, slow cooked in a clay pot with onions, capers, lemon, tomatoes, olives, a lot of garlic and other spices.”

Malibu Times Multimedia Director Julie Ellerton hit the streets this week to ask, “What is the traditional holiday fare in your family?”

“Christmas Eve for me comes Cuban-style every year. Starting with a tall glass of mojito (Cuban rum and mint drink) and fried croquetas (croquettes) for appetizers. The main course is lechón asado (roasted pork, marinated in orange juice), moros y cristianos (black beans and rice), platanitos frito (fried plantains), and yuca con mojo (baked yuca with a sweet garlic sauce). Dessert is Spanish flan, topped with rum (nougat almond candy) with American ice cream. The best Cuban chef always uses love as their secret ingredient.”
“Christmas is always a special time for families, starting as a child, thinking of Christmas morning. The holiday fare for our family has always been a turkey dinner at Grandma’s house. The gathering of aunts, uncles, grandparents and children has been a tradition that has been kept alive through generations and always something to look forward to.” 
“Because we celebrate Hanukkah, the holiday traditional meal, obviously, is latkes, [which] can be made in many different ways. My mother made them in the blender like one big lump … I make latkes and it’s the once a year super-duper, oil, fat, grease, carbohydrates — we might as well love it — with sour cream and apple sauce. I like to put some strawberries on, sometimes some jam. I’ve been to places where they give you latkes with caviar but not at my house.”
“My holiday traditional meal is always tamales. Tamales made with the traditional chicken or beef — my mom and all her sisters would make them. I was born here but my family is originally from Mexico.”
“Since I was little, it’s been tamales. My mom would make them and I would help her by putting the masa on the corn husk. Part of the process was soaking the corn husks, putting the masa on them, cooking the meat, applying the meat and steaming them, so it literally would take up to two days to make a huge batch of tamales. They were delicious. Since my mom has passed, we buy them. Now I go to Riverside to get the best tamales. It’s our family tradition, we have them every year for Christmas Eve.”