¡Bright Good Morning to all!
Blessed our hearts for we have 6 days left for Christmas!
Christmas, a time for union, joy, family gatherings, happiness, and hope. We must be grateful for all we have, for little it may be, remembering that some people are less fortunate in this life but despite that, they are doing their best to keep going, as are we.
This week's contest I find it so relatable! One of the questions is something my mom, little sister and I have been talking about in the last few days, the other, pff, food, my favorite thing in the world.
So, I'll stop rambling and get to it.
1.- Do you like to travel during the holidays, or stay close to home?
We always had stayed home during the holidays, it's a tradition we cherish for we are natural hosts and love receiving our friends and family to have delicious treats and create fond memories.
Last week, my brother-in-law and my big sister María, asked us to go on a beach trip this Christmas. We sat down to talk about it after giving it a proper amount of thought. We decided to stay put, I mean, there are many, not Christmas related reasons for our refusal, but there are some Christmas related ones, for instance, Christmas Dinner, all the preparations, the food, the drinks, some of them have to be done days in advance to be able to sit down in the table all together giving thanks to God for all the blessings received. I don't see us doing that on a beach, it's not the same, for me, it doesn't have the same warmth as my home.
2.- What is your favorite holiday food, and why?
All food is delicious, all Christmas food is absolutely delicious. But if I have to pick one, I'll pick the one I can eat not only on Christmas, I can eat it every day of the year, I pick Hallacas.
Hallacas are a delicious treat in all Venezuelan homes. They date from Colonial times although the exact origin hasn't been confirmed. Some historians say that the slaves took the leftovers of their employers and made a meat stew which they put on a thin layer of corn dough and wrapped on smoked banana leaves.
Over the centuries this has evolved and might include capers, olives, raisins, bell peppers, and depending on the region, Andean, Central, Occidental, Oriental, they can have boiled potatoes, boiled eggs, chickpeas, bacon, and other stuff.
This dish has another variant, what we call Bollitos, and they are made with the leftovers of the ingredients of the hallacas; you take what's left of the meat stew and all the toppings chopped up and mix it with the corn dough, and wrapped up in banana leaves and boiled like hallacas.
Either one of these dishes can be eaten alone or with other things, as Chicken Salad, Bread Ham, Baked Pork Leg, Honey Baked Ham (fancy and imported), or Baked Chicken, these are the traditional ingredients of a Venezuelan Christmas Dinner. And all of them can be eaten separately throughout the year, but hallacas, breakfast, lunch or dinner, January, July, December, no matter what time of the year it is, give me, I'll eat it.