The Holiday Dishes That Are Never Missing From Your Table
Consider This from NPR
NPR
4.2 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2021
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
We asked all of you what holiday dish is never missing from your table, and you answered – from seafood gumbo in Louisiana to Hungarian Beigli to traditional New Mexican cookies called Biscochitos and more. Be careful listening on an empty stomach.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When it comes to gumbo, valent chasel is no authenticity police. |
| 0:04.9 | I'm not going to get into the argument of what if it needs to be read or if it has to be made |
| 0:08.4 | of or can't have to be made of whatever. Chasel hails from South Louisiana. So for her, |
| 0:13.2 | it's just not the holiday season without that aromatic savoury stew on the table. I mean, |
| 0:20.0 | it is the state's official cuisine after all. So it starts off with a roux, which is like oil and |
| 0:24.5 | flour and then sauteed veggies are thrown in there. And then you kind of have the freedom with |
| 0:30.0 | whatever else. Like, my mom always does like a chicken and sausage. In the south, gumbo recipes |
| 0:36.6 | have been passed down from generation to generation to generation. Ever since the turn of the 19th century, |
| 0:43.4 | some gumbo have meat, some have seafood, some are broccoli, some are really thick. The recipes |
| 0:50.1 | can vary with their own special twists. I think like the best ones are the seafood ones just because, |
| 0:56.4 | I don't know, seafood just such as like it's so great and rich here. In her totally unbiased opinion, |
| 1:02.4 | Chasel says her aunt Debbie's recipe is the best because it stays true to ingredients that may |
| 1:08.2 | not be as popular these days. She like is authentic to the it being a poor man's food. Like, it's |
| 1:14.2 | whatever you have available. So I think a lot of people omit the livers and gizzards because like, |
| 1:21.6 | we don't have to use all the parts of the meat anymore. Like you could just buy a piece of chicken |
| 1:25.3 | and you'll get flavor. But her is so special because of that richness that those like organ |
| 1:30.9 | needs provide. And just the simple act of eating her aunt's gumbo with her family, that's another |
| 1:37.2 | thing that makes it so special. But it is another pandemic year. On top of that, families in Louisiana |
| 1:45.6 | are still working to repair their lives and homes and the wake of Hurricane Ida. So Chasel wasn't |
| 1:51.9 | really sure if her aunt Debbie would be up for making Christmas gumbo at her house this year. |
| 1:56.8 | It didn't feel right for me to be able to be like, so what's the Christmas plans everybody? |
| 2:01.0 | Like, what are we doing? Because things are still so uncertain. Like, it's not that much different |
... |
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