Tag Archives: christmas dessert

Norwegian Christmas Dessert

Text:

“My dad’s side of the family is Norwegian; we have a big family reunion for Christmas. We have a dessert tradition where you hide a nut in one of the desserts and then pass out a bunch of little portions of the dessert and if you have the nut, you win a prize. There is a kid prize and an adult prize. The prize differs – nowadays it’s money or a gift card but it used to be a toy for the kids and a bottle of wine or something for the adults.”

Context:

EK is a 19-year-old American student at USC. She described a family tradition that occurred during Christmas celebrations. She believes the family tradition of hiding a nut in the dessert comes from her Norwegian roots. She was raised in Northern California. 

Interpretation:

This is a tradition I remember hearing of at one point in my life, but I have never done it myself. Traditions like this are extra special because they connect you to your family’s past – in this case, Norway. It can be touching to do a tradition like this and think of all the ancestors who came before you who did something similar. Interestingly enough, when I tried to look this tradition up, it seemed that it exists in both Norway (“Norwegian Christmas Traditions”, n.d.) and Sweden (Duxbury, n.d.). It is obvious that traditions like these have variation across nearby cultures and they have likely existed predating some of the countries themselves. Also interesting is that the words for the pudding the nut is found in are quite similar – “risengrynsgrøt” in Norway and “Risgrynsgröt” in Sweden. While my informant didn’t specify what kind of nut, it seems it is generally an almond. And in both cases, it seems common to do the desert tradition around Christmas, with a reward for the winner. My informant’s family’s prize isn’t the same as either the Norwegian prize (Marzipan Pig) or the Swedish one (some sort of task). Her family prize is different each year and there is a prize for kids and adults separately, which means there are two hidden nuts and two winners. Thus, we can see the hallmark multiplicity and variation in this holiday tradition. This tradition is likely widespread in the Scandinavian countries and was brought here when ancestors migrated to the United States. 

Annotations/References:

Duxbury, John. “Rice Pudding or Porridge (Risgrynsgröt).” SwedishFood.com, Swedish Food, www.swedishfood.com/swedish-food-recipes-desserts/389-rice-pudding. 

“Norwegian Christmas Traditions.” Visitoslo.com, Oslo Vistor Centre, www.visitoslo.com/en/articles/christmas-traditions/. 

BUCHE DE NOEL

Nationality: German-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Graduate Student
Residence: Vail, CO
Performance Date: April 27, 2021
Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE:

Informant: Well at Christmas we’ll always have Buche de Noel… Which is a French dessert. It’s like, “Christmas log…” And it’s like a cake, and it’s like a roll, you know? Where you roll it up? And you decorate it to like resemble a log, and a lot of times it’ll have like marzipan… Like little marzipan mushrooooms, or little like eeeeelves, or something, and there’ll be like powdered sugar to be like snoooooow. And they’re just like super pretty. And we always do that. 

INFORMANTS RELATIONSHIP TO THE PIECE:

Informant: We’re not French, but we always do it. My mom did a year abroad in France, so she’s big on France. We go there a lot. All I know is it’s just like a traditional French dessert to have at Christmas. 

Interviewer: Do you make it or buy it?

Informant: We always buy it. We always do catering for Christmas. Cooking or baking is too much pressure. We wanna be like enjoying ourselves. Like for me, I really love baking, but if there’s a lot of people around, I like hate baking. I’ll be like, “Get out of my space. Like stop it. Like leave.”

REFLECTION:

Buche de Noel began as a tradition because it represented the burning of the Yule log, which is rooted in Pagan rituals. The tradition then evolved from the burning of a log to making and consuming a cake, which has then become cross-culturally adopted, with a German-American family making this French dessert part of their family tradition. This demonstrates how traditions can change over time and become adopted by new people and groups. The informant is attracted to this Christmas cake even without fully understanding its ritual context and history. Instead, she appreciates it for its aesthetic appearance and sweet taste. This is perhaps why, as Elliott Oring writes in Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: an Introduction, “food traditions are likely to be tenacious and survive when other aspects of culture are transformed or disappear” (35). One does not always have to know a food’s ritual context to appreciate its taste or appearance. Thus, food can be adopted by “outsiders.” Buche de Noel is now a part of the informant’s family tradition, and has taken on its own meaning within the Christmas traditions and rituals of her family––a meaning that is separate from the context and meaning it might have to a French family.

ANNOTATION:

Source cited above: Oring, Elliott. Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: an Introduction. Utah State University Press, 1986.