Hemispheric Holidays

In the northern hemisphere (particularly in the USA), we often celebrate traditional late-calendar holidays with recently harvested, cold weather comfort foods, like roasts, winter squash, late-season tubers, and autumn-harvested fruits, and all the heavier, creamy, sweet, spiciness that goes best with those things, and things like hot cider, cocoa, and masala chai - all designed to warm our bellies and homes.

For our summer holidays, things take on a completely different look, feel, and palate, with sweet, cold melons, berries, and meats cooked outdoors, on the grill or in the smoker, lots of fresh greens, lemonade, iced tea, etc. - all designed to savor the freshness of the season, cool and refresh our bodies, without overheating our homes.

I'm very curious to know what these holidays look like, from your kitchens, around the world, and very curious about the southern hemisphere differences. What is Christmas & New Year holiday cooking like, down under? What hot weather holidays do you celebrate, and how do those celebrations look, from your kitchens?

I have been looking forward to learning about Aussie Christmas Celebrations.

So I ask Pinterest because folks there usually have all the answers.


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What is more popular, ham or turkey?  Or maybe meat pies?

What are the pies that are served?  Pumpkin or something else?

G'Day,  I am an American  and Australian citizen and have been living in Queensland, Australia for 15 years now. At Christmas time we have cold salads and prawns on the barbie! Much like America fresh fruit and vegetables.  Fun in the sun, as Christmas  is our summer time! Pumpkins here are roasted and eaten in bite size portions. Pavlova is a meringue that is very sweet and designed into a circle and fresh fruit and whipped cream is placed over it. Very sweet and light. Yummy!

Winter time, we make pumpkin soup! Very rich and silky. Lots of roasted meats and winter vegetables!

Not many fruit pies. But as you remarked about 'meat pies'. They are very similar to our American 'pot pies'. Only thing different is you  can actually hold them in your hand and eat them. The bottom crust is firmer and the top crust is more of a 'puffed pastry'. They are delicious, as you can get a variety of mixtures: such as beef, cheese and onions or mashed potatoes and steak.. oh my gosh! We found a bakery that makes the best meat pies ever!!!

Anyway, thanks for the question. Great to share different cultures! We are ALL so very much alike! We need to embrace each other more! What a beautiful world we would have! Stay safe and well. Cheers, Ardella

The Aussie meat pie sound very much like the Scottish version that I love so much! Pavlova is a lovely, yummy, and so very versatile dessert, too... Thank you for sharing that!

Carla Burke wrote: I'm very curious to know what these holidays look like, from your kitchens, around the world, and very curious about the southern hemisphere differences. What is Christmas & New Year holiday cooking like, down under? What hot weather holidays do you celebrate, and how do those celebrations look, from your kitchens?

I live in southern Spain now and I'll be happy to report, a little bit at least - although most of the people are like me Muslim and we don't celebrate Christmas! That being said I'll be going to a few holiday concerts in the area and will  share on that topic God willing. And I might be able to wangle a cathedral visit since I live in Granada, God willing.

I live in New Zealand.

Honestly, we have an odd relationship to Christmas. We have adapted Northern Hemisphere traditions to summer, but only partially and awkwardly. It's all a bit odd and culturally schizophrenic.

So, we still have plenty of Christmas decorations themed around snow and robins and holly. Christmas displays inside malls will have fake snow. We watch all the same Christmas movies the rest of the world does. But there'll also be some hokey decorations showing Santa wearing shorts and surfboarding, or snowmen on the beach, things like that.

The older folk still enjoy Christmas cake, pudding, roast turkey and so on, but those foods really don't sit well on a hot day! So most people have ham rather than turkey, or do a BBQ (which down here is like grilled meat, not like southern-style BBQ). For obvious reasons mulled wine and hot chocolate isn't much of a thing here, and eggnog hasn't really caught on either (although I make Alton Brown's Aged Eggnog and three people so far have caught the tradition because it's so good!)

Strawberries are very good in NZ - big and juicy and sweet. Strawberries scream 'Christmas' to me, and going to a pick-your-own berry farm is a fun summer activity. So is getting a 'real fruit ice cream', which is vanilla ice cream or frozen yoghurt blended up with frozen berries and piped soft serve-style into a waffle cone. Pavlova is a popular Christmas dessert, and that usually has strawberries on it as well.

In general we don't decorate as lavishly as the US or Europe. Some fancier neighborhoods have Christmas lights, and you can walk or drive around to see them - but because summer evenings are so long, it's past the kids' bedtimes before it gets dark! (See also: Guy Fawkes' Day. It's a problem.)

Families go to the beach a lot around Christmas. Camping is pretty popular. The long warm evenings are good for end-of-year work parties and picnics.

I have spent one almost-Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere, visiting England in early December. It was absolutely magical, and felt 'right' in quite a profound way. It wasn't snowing, but the cold and Christmas markets and lit-up streets and old-fashioned architecture were far more legit and picturesque than anything we have down here.

That said, I love Christmas, and the lengthening evenings, hot days and growing veggie garden are very evocative in their own way. I've often wondered whether I'd get that Christmas feeling if I visited the Northern Hemisphere during summer!

schizophrenic is a great word. Many of the Christmas foods are heavy and not good for heat. Stuffed turkey or chicken, mash, carb-heavy food, you'll croak when it's 40C.
Here in South America there is often a roasted bird, but more often here we barbecue (beef, not burgers), cold beers, salads (and my family is also Japanese, so we also have obligatory Japanese holiday food: manju, some kind of cold noodle thing, tempura, sekihan, etc), but the big thing is FRUIT!
Summer fruits are in season at Christmas so we make sure to have a huge spread: peaches, grapes, guavas, nectarines, melons, pineapples, cherries, mangos, plums, whatever we can get, the more the better. In the city my husband is from tents pop up all over the place with fruit brought in from all corners of the country so people can have fruit on their Christmas table.
On Christmas eve many people eat fish (7 kinds of fish, same that my Italian aunties in NY did when I was a kid).

A sad thing about Christmas is that you can't do cookies here in the summer. In December humidity, they just immediately turn to mush. We occasionally do Thanksgiving in July (when it's cold) and save the cookies for then. Desserts are usually a cold pudding, ice cream, ice cream cake, etc.

Tereza said, "schizophrenic is a great word. Many of the Christmas foods are heavy and not good for heat. Stuffed turkey or chicken, mash, carb-heavy food, you'll croak when it's 40C."

That's what prompted my question. I could see deep- trying a turkey, or roasting one on a spit, over a fire, outside - but definitely not the traditional roasting, USA style. I couldn't imagine the traditional, homemade candies, like divinity, rum/ bourbon balls, fudge, or all the heavy baking, either - for the same reasons we don't make them, in the summer. I thought maybe summer fruits would play a big role, rather than our late-harvest-season fruits like apples, pears, etc.

Thanks for the fun, interesting replies, everyone!