Every year at Christmas time, thousands of South Africans insist on cooking and eating a dry, less flavoursome chicken because “it’s traditional”. For most, it’s the only time of year they’ll eat the giant American bird.
Why do people do this? We have our own giant flightless bird to eat. Ostrich meat is richer in protein, tastier and doesn’t take six hours to cook. It might not fit on the dining room table, but it goes really well with gravy and cranberry sauce (if you insist).
Why is turkey traditional here? It’s not a universal Christmas meat. Most countries have a smorgasbord of ham, fish lamb or beef and their own unique Christmas comestibles.
I happily grew up in a Mediterranean-inclined household where slow-roasted Greek lamb and roast chicken (preceded by copious amounts of champagne and orange juice) was the order of the day.
Every Christmas my grumpy English grandmother would say, “Oh, we’re not having turkey?” She would also refuse to have any lamb, “Too much garlic for me”. It’s testament to my mom’s patience that she never told her mother-in-law where to get off. She did, however, stuff the roast chicken with loads of garlic, especially for Gran.
My brother’s girlfriend is of Polish descent and they have bisgos stew. It takes three days to cook and usually contains cabbage, beef, cabbage, pork, cabbage, mushrooms, cabbage and anything else lying around. They also have carp. Yes, carp, soaked in water then vinegar for a week before Christmas. And I thought Greek Easter’s painted eggs were odd.
It seems that in South Africa most people have dishes particular to their cultural heritage, but most of the time there’s the obligatory turkey. My husband’s extended Afrikaans family always have chicken pie and a shredded lamb concoction that offends all my taste sensibilities. Everybody prefers the other dishes, even the cruelly masticated lamb, but they all feel obliged to have some stuffed bird too.
I think it’s time we freed ourselves of this turkey tyranny. Our local lamb, beef, chicken and ostrich meat is exceptionally good and does not bow down to a hegemonic American ideal of what constitutes Christmas lunch.
As for the hideous evil that is Christmas pudding, only my father likes that. And that’s because my English grandmother made him eat it.
I know this is one innocous blog but i think you use “thousands of south africans insist…” a tard too generous. I’m over thirty and the only thing i know about people who insist on turkey/chicken or the likes over christmas are americans.
The real tyranny is Christmas itself.
Dreadful festival.
Now why would you deny us a little taste of Americana?
We SAns love our Levis, Kentucky, Coke, McDonalds, Hollywood….
Besides isn’t turkey healthier than the other decadent alternatives you allude to?
Dave Harris- That’s why half of South africa is potty. Americans have been poisoning the world for decades with their trash which the populace imbibe by the ton rotting gut and brain simultaneously. I personally detest turkey and most feathered foods but I have no problem with others eating it. To each their own but I would rather ‘rot’ my body with decent wine and a good rump steak than with coke and a big mac. Americana for the americans.
When you bake a xmas pudding which is stored in a muslin bag in the cool pantry for a fortnight before eating, it MUST have plenty of small silver coins in it. And served drenched and swimming in custard. Delicious. And profitable.
I never had turkey in my life until I moved to the UK. We always had roast chicken for Christmas. It was delicious. Turkey is gross.
Po: Is it true some Brits still have goose?
Turkey is delicious, its lean low in fat and high in protein and great on a sarnie long after fat St Nick comes to visit…
Best served with cranberry apple sauce…yum…sorry author you are missing out!
Folks – relax and enjoy the holidays for fks sake and get back to analyzing everything next year.
ha, I love this article. I’m SA Hindu, we celebrate Xmas, not Christmas, and we also have the turkey as the centrepiece on the dining table. THIS CHANGES NOW…or as soon as I can convince my family that Ostrich is a viable Hindu meat, this might take a few years, but I’m definitely having Ostrich on my Xmas plate this year!
I feel sorry for your grumpy English granny, Amanda. She must have felt just as you do when facing up to the turkey.
My favourite Christmas dinner ever was a prawn braai on Anerley Beach. I don’t really mind what we eat on the day as long as its beautifully cooked and washed down with oodles of dry bubbly and accompanied by el cheapo Christmas crackers.
How many sleeps?
I can’t remember the last time we ate turkey for Christmas. Not being much a tradition slave, we started our own when we moved here. It’s too damn hot for cooking most of the time…so we make lots of different entertaining cold dishes on Christmas Eve (good family bonding time) and then Christmas Day is free to open presents and go to the beach or something…and then when we get home Christmas dinner just needs to be eaten.
We’ve had chicken, rabbit, duck and a couple of other interesting things in the last five or so years, often no meat at all. Think we might have had a braai a few years back to eat with all the tasty salad, but I’m struggling to remember the last time it was turkey…must have been over ten years ago.
Maybe one of the big supermarkets can give us some proper stats on who eats turkey – and why they bother???!
I used to think exactly the same but we blow it, big time. We buy a huge bird that is exactly as you say…tough, tasteless AND we get stuck with leftovers for ever.
Until….recently.
Get yourself the smallest turkey you can find. Cook two if you want; personally, I cook gammon or something else for a bit of variation.
I do the turkey on a Weber. Stuff it, put it on the Weber, cook it as long as your cooking instructions say or wait until the little red plastic thingy pops out. Do nothing else to it except add more coals to your Weber when the coals cool too much.
Delicious!
I look for turkeys at other times of the year as well.
Oh yes, and then I get turkey salads and sandwiches for a few days after Xmas as well. Life could not be better!!!!
Outrage! My in-laws have for years tried to impose their godless gastric inclinations on me come Christmas day but I have successfully resisted. I have refused the rare succulent fillet with pepper sauce and sautéed potatoes, the seared tuna with crispy noodles, herbs & chili. No! Each Xmas I receive my dry turkey leg from god’s people next door who better understand that the sooner we eat these oversized desiccated chickens, the sooner the freezer section of P&P can restore our pride in real food. From now on I’m only going to talk turkey not walk…
But seriously – its one thing to give the bird the bird but surely the pudding remains? Once the kids have strip mined it of coins, the remaining tailings go very well with brandy sauce/custard and even ice-cream. Or maybe my fondness derives from the relief that the turkey is done?
The English were eating Turkey at Christmas long before they moved to America; hardly an American bird.
The point of a Turkey is it suffices for an entire extended family.
I don’t know a single South African soul who has turkey on Christmas day.
Amanda: will have to do some research on that one!
If turkey is so good why is there ALWAYS more turkey left over than anything else? And then just to prove that turkey is so crap, by the time New Year comes along we’re still throwing away turkey leftovers to make room in the fridge for bubbly. Ostrich, rabbit or lamb for me anyday!
Hark Amanda….tis true the brits indeed still have goose! What a devilish surprise!
In Germany we used to have goose. A Christmas or two ago I very much wanted to have goose. So I tried the butcheries – the Pick ‘n Pays and Woolies didn’t have any – without any luck. Then I phoned places in our vicinity which I thought kept geese. No luck. Until I found the foreman on one of the farms who kept quite a number of geese. I asked him whether he had any geese for slaughter. He was quite horrified at the suggestion of having his geese slaughtered and said that he only sold his geese as pets. Needless to say we had the usual turkey for Christmas dinner.
@MLH, you sure about this one? The English were eating Turkey at Christmas long before they moved to America; hardly an American bird.
Just asking, just asking….
Thanksgiving and all.
The English used to eat goose for Christmas way back in the days. Goose is rubbish to eat as well (or maybe my family just don’t know how to cook it). I’ve never been fond of geese as the ones I was in contact with most as a child were the ones my grandmother’s neighbour kept as watchdogs? watchgeese? They were evil bastards prone to attack anything and I was absolutely terrified of them. I absolutely relished my first opportunity to eat goose because of their evil ways (my young self felt it was their just comeuppance) and was completely and utterly disappointed.
Yes, goose and carp, the more traditional Xmas fare in many European countries is unfortunatley not available in SA. Yet in Cyrildene Chinatown, if you speak Chinese and like carp, you can sometimes get it. Take my advice and look for small murky tubs of water in a container sitting on the pavement and ask for “lee yue”. Take it live into a large plastic sack. I bought a whole fish (uncleaned) for R 65, a local fishmarket was willing to kill it (humanely),clean it for nothing and belive em, it is very versatile and delicious.
I’m clearly in the minority but I love turkey and wish it was available more often (Pick n Pay used to sell free range turkey drumsticks). It’s low fat and, used in stews and casseroles, very tasty.
I am a Safrican living in Shanghai. I went to a Thanksgiving dinner hosted by an American friend where there weren’t all that many Americans – no-one seemed to know how to carve the turkey. He had ordered it (as well as stuffing and mash) from a hotel, but it wasn’t great. I am organising Christmas dinner and had planned to get one too : ) I’ve asked people to bring a dish from their home country – maybe I’ll just make some big boboties – I had bobotie for Christmas once in Taiwan – it was GREAT!
The Americans only eat Turkey religiously on Thanksgiving, for Christmas its normally a mixture of lamb, chicken, hams etc…