Rising exchange rates don’t have to put you in the red when traveling in Italy. With record high Euro exchange rates, travelers can stretch their dollar when dining by trying some new dining options.
Eating is a pure pleasure for Italians and visiting guests. Italians take their meals very seriously and a full 3-5 course dinner in a fancy ristaurante can eat into a travel budget quickly. In order to stretch a budget, try these simple tips.
Breakfast is often included in a hotel’s room package. If it is not, follow the locals to a neighborhood bar for your morning coffee and pastry. A bar in Italy is not a place to consume alcohol and dance the night away. They are fancy little candy box establishments, found on nearly every corner. Italian bars are the place where patrons socialize over their morning coffee (sometimes several times each morning), return for a light lunch, and arrive again in the evening for an apertivo or cocktail before dinner.
Bars in busier cities, especially those in tourist areas, traditionally charge one price to stand at the counter (al banco) or a higher price to sit at one of their café-style tables (al tavolo). If you want to sit and enjoy the view, then the price is usually worth it. A coffee that might cost 1.50 Euro at the counter could cost twice as much to sit at a table. During the late morning/afternoon and evening hours, service at a table traditionally includes some salty snacks like potato chips or nuts, even olives, with your beverage.
If you choose to stand at the counter, patrons traditionally pay the cashier, and then present their receipt to the barista who will complete the coffee order.
Most bars have a tasty selection of pizza and panini.
ITALIAN COFFEE Italians consume a variety of coffee drinks throughout the day. Most will start the day with a cappuccino which is a shot of espresso served in a large cup with steamed milk and topped with frothy milk foam. Most Italians will not drink cappuccino after mid morning but switch to other coffee drinks. Of course, they’re happy to accommodate tourist requests for cappuccino at any time of the day.
Later in the morning, and throughout the day and into the evening, Italians consume what they call caffe which is espresso, or a small cup of very strong coffee topped with a delicious caramel colored foam called crema. This coffee is rich and strong, and usually sweetened with sugar. Espresso is the basis for most Italian coffee drinks.
If you want a weaker version of coffee that resembles what Americans drink, order a caffe Americano which is a shot of espresso with steamed hot water in a larger cup. This is also called caffe lungo.
If you want to be more adventurous, order a caffe corretto which is espresso corrected with a shot of liquor like grappa, cognac or flavored liquor. Nothing warms your heart faster or settles a full stomach.
EATING AT BARS Besides serving fantastic coffee throughout the day, an Italian bar usually offers a selection of sandwiches called pannini. These can make an affordable option for lunch or dinner. Some bars also offer a limited selection of pre-made one dish meals, like pasta or vegetables. These establishments are referred to as tavolo caldo. A simple one-course meal with a mineral water aqua minerale or a house wine (vino della casa) is an exceptional value for the traveler.
APERTIVO AND ANTIPASTO FOR DINNER Italians traditionally dine relatively late (8-9 p.m.) for dinner. After a long day of touring, visitors might opt for a lighter, less expensive option for dinner. Many of the local bars offer light snacks to entice cocktail business. Some wine bars also offer a variety of little sandwiches, potato croquettes and grilled vegetables either complementary or for a very reasonable price.
In Venice in particular, this selection of snacks is referred to as Cichetti. Combined with a spritz (cocktail made from Campari and Prosecco) or a great glass of local wine, these light snacks can make for a satisfying dinner.
Each region of Italy offers regional food fares, typical for that area. The Cichetti in Venice may include such items as marinated sardines, Bacala which is a salt fish cod spread for bread or polenta and deep friend calamari. Antipasto offerings in Tuscany may be a selection of salamis, cheeses and olives.
In Rome, the antipasto might be crusty bread with tomato, herb and olive oil topping called Buschetta or a sampling of small slices of freshly-made pizza.
Whatever, the region, the food is delicious, fresh and attractively prepared. Even the simple selections from a bar will satisfy your hunger and your quest for a delicious yet affordable meal.
Crave chocolate? Do you salivate when someone utters those sweet syllables? Whether you call it chocolate (Spanish, Portuguese), xocolata (Catalan), chocolat (French), chocola (Dutch), Schokolade (German), Schoggi (Swiss-German), cioccolato (Italian), choklad (Swedish), sjokolade (Norwegian), czekolada (Polish), suklaa (Finnish) or okolaad (Estonian), it’s all the same: delicious!
As a woman at a Swiss chocolate factory told me, “You don’t need to know any other languages to talk about chocolate. Chocolate speaks for itself!”
FROM BEAN TO BAR The Olmecs, Mayans, and Aztecs were enjoying chocolate as a drink for centuries before Christopher Columbus bumped into the Western Hemishphere on his way to the spice-producing lands of the East. Both Columbus and Hernán Cortés are credited with bringing cacao beans (from which chocolate is made) back to Spain in the early 1500s, where the Spanish eventually figured out that the bitter beverage of Central America tasted a lot better with sugar, vanilla and spices such as cinnamon and cloves added to the brew.
Sweet, foamy, dark and thick, hot chocolate soon became a favorite drink of the Spanish nobility, and Spain monopolized the market for cacao beans for nearly a century. In the 1600s, the popularity of chocolate—still consumed only as a beverage—began to spread to other parts of Europe, including France, England, Austria and the Netherlands. By the early 1700s, chocolate-drinking establishments in London were already competing with the popular coffeehouses there.
It was the Europeans who turned a ceremonial drink of the Aztec aristocracy into the affordable chocolate products that we enjoy today: chocolate powder, chocolate candy, chocolate syrup, chocolate spread.
In 1828 a Dutchman named Coenraad van Houten developed a process for removing the natural fat (cocoa butter) from the cacao beans and turning the remaining solids into powder. By the mid-1800s, European chocolatiers had figured out how to combine sugar and cocoa butter with a paste of ground cacao beans to make bars of “eating chocolate.”
The British were also pioneers in the development of chocolate technology, but the Swiss were the leaders in the field. Cailler, the first brand of Swiss chocolates, was established in 1819. In 1875, Daniel Peter in Switzerland invented milk chocolate, soon to be marketed by Nestlé. Four years later, Rodolphe Lindt created the world’s first “melting chocolate” for use in pastry- and candy-making. And in 1913, Jules Séchaud introduced a process for manufacturing filled chocolates. By that time, the Swiss were already the largest producers of chocolate in the world.
SWEET TOOTH Today, the Swiss, Belgians, and Germans lead the world in chocolate consumption, happily eating 24 to 26 pounds of chocolate per person every year. The British, Austrians, and Norwegians are close behind, consuming 18 to 22 pounds each. And what tourist traveling in Europe can resist those triangular Toblerone and purple-packaged Milka bars, square Ritter Sports, round Mozart Kugeln, gold-wrapped Ferrero Rochers, fancy French and Belgian handmade bon-bons, chocolate Santas at Christmas, chocolate bunnies and cream-filled eggs at Easter time?
When I told a Swiss hotelier that I was surprised to learn that the Swiss eat an average of 12 kilograms (over 26 pounds) of chocolate per person annually, she looked surprised, too. “So little?” she asked incredulously. “I eat 200 grams of chocolate every day. Let’s see, that’s…”—she stopped to calculate in her head—”3 pounds each week, which is about 150 pounds a year. And I’m such a happy person!”
CHOCOLATE TOURS Several countries in Europe have fascinating museums that focus on the history and process of making chocolate, from bean to bar. And many chocolate producers—from major multinational companies to small independent artisans—offer tours of their facilities, with a chocolate tasting included. The Swiss even have a Chocolate Train that takes you on a round trip from Montreux to visit the Cailler-Nestlé chocolate factory in Broc, as well as a cheese factory in Gruyères.
For more information on European chocolate museums and factory tours, check out the following sweet links:
Goose and duck eggs from Poland, decorated with paint and colored straw.
By Sharon Hudgins Photos by the author and courtesy German National Tourist Board
Europeans take their Easter egg traditions seriously.
From Scandinavia and Britain in the north to Italy and Greece in the south, from the Slavic countries to Germany, Romania and Hungary, eggs at Easter time are dyed in many colors, decorated with intricate designs, hung from tree branches, strung onto wires, buried in the ground, featured in games, exchanged among friends, baked into breads and taken to church to be blessed on Easter morning.
Easter egg tree at a Russian Orthodox church.
PRE-CHRISTIAN TRADITION Although colored eggs are the most salient symbol of Easter today, their association with springtime reaches much farther into the past. Archeologists in Europe have uncovered egg-shaped artifacts with ornate designs made thousands of years before the Christian era.
Etched goose and duck eggs from the Czech Republic.
Folklorists say that decorated eggs were part of pagan spring festivals, for which eggs were painted in bright colors to symbolize blossoming plants. So it’s not surprising that the egg, representing the creation of new life, would also find a place in religious celebrations of the resurrection of Christ. The decorating of Easter eggs is a long-established folk art in many parts of Europe, still practiced today. During the 40-day Lenten fast preceding Easter, many Christians abstain from eating certain foods, including eggs. But the hens keep on laying. Some of these excess eggs are dyed a solid color: red is especially symbolic, representing drops of Christ’s blood as well as the regeneration of life.
Others are decorated with intricate floral or geometric motifs. Several countries and regions in Europe—Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Moravia, Slovakia, Bohemia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Germany, Austria—are well known for their production of beautifully decorated eggs, using age-old techniques and designs, many of which are unique to that particular place. The connoisseur of folk art eggs can tell at a glance whether an egg has come from the eastern or western part of the Czech Republic, from Slovakia, from northern Croatia or from central Austria.
Easter fountain in Ginsheim/Rhine near Mainz, Germany. Photo: Eric Eichberger
MAUNDY THURSDAY In many parts of Europe, Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday) is the traditional day for decorating Easter eggs. Up through the 19th century, superstitions from earlier times survived in the belief that eggs laid on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday or Easter Sunday had magical powers: to prevent illness, to bring good luck, to act as an aphrodisiac, to ensure that the next baby will be a boy, to forestall an early death, to foretell the future. In some places, Easter eggs were fed to the livestock to protect the animals, or buried in the fields to help produce abundant crops. And Eastern European bee-keepers put a colored Easter egg under each hive to guarantee a good supply of honey.
A charming custom that dates from the 19th century is the making of an egg tree at Easter. Long branches of budding pussy willows or yellow forsythia are arranged in a vase, and eggs are hung on the branches like Christmas ornaments on an evergreen tree. Traditionally the eggs are hollow chicken or duck eggs, the whites and yolks first removed through pin holes before the eggshells are dyed and decorated, then a loop of ribbon or yarn pulled through the holes for suspending the eggs from the boughs. Sometimes brightly painted wooden eggs are also hung from the branches, along with little wooden birds. These egg trees are especially popular in Germany (where they’re known as Ostersträusse, Easter bouquets, or Osterbäume, Easter trees) and in several other parts of Central Europe, too.
Easter fountain in St. Wendel, in Germany’s Saarland region. Photo: Amt fuer Stadtmarketing, St. Wendel
OUTDOOR EASTER TREES In some regions you’ll even see outdoor Easter trees, with real or plastic eggs suspended from the branches of live bushes or trees. In the Franconian Alps of northern Bavaria, the fountain or well in the center of many villages is decorated with garlands of evergreens, colorful streamers, fresh flowers and hundreds of painted eggs. For two weeks beginning on Good Friday, more than 200 of these traditional Osterbrunnen (Easter wells) are on display in Franconian towns.
In Europe today, Easter eggs are made from a wide variety of materials: natural egg shells—chicken, duck, goose—with the egg white and yolk blown out of the shell; uncooked eggs with their shells intact; hard-boiled eggs; edible substances such as sugar, chocolate and marzipan; precious metals, enameled metals, wood, wax, porcelain, onyx, marble, glass, cinnabar, cardboard and papier-mâché.
Decorations range from solid colors to painted, etched or batiked designs. Beads, lace, straw, colored paper and decals are also glued onto eggshells. The designs can be geometric, floral, symbolic—whatever suits the egg decorator’s fancy. And sizes extend from miniature jeweled eggs made with precious stones to the giant chocolate eggs, up to a meter tall, so beloved by Italian children.
An Easter egg tree decorated with eggs from many Central and Eastern European countries.
You can see hundreds of handcrafted eggs at the many Easter markets held in Europe during the spring. Prices range from just a few euros for simply painted hens’ eggs to several thousand euros for large exotic-bird eggs painted by internationally renowned artists. One of the most stunning eggs I saw at a Munich Ostereiermarkt (Easter egg market) was a huge ostrich egg acid-etched to look like lace. It was priced way beyond my budget, but I still came home with some lovely smaller samples of folk-art eggs by local artists. Now it’s time for me to find some pussy willow boughs and start decorating my own egg tree for the season.
Goose eggs from the Czech Republic, decorated with colored straw.
Liechtenstein is a small country with a big appetite for good food.
Wedged in between Austria and Switzerland, this country of only 62 square miles is bisected south to north by the Rhine River, with majestic mountains rising steeply on both sides of the lush Rhine Valley. Corn, cabbages, beets, onions and asparagus grow on the fertile Rhine plain. Wild game such as deer, boar, pheasant and grouse roam the forests and meadows on the mountainsides, and silvery trout swim in the cold Alpine streams.
Perched high on one of the mountains, the medieval castle of the princely family of Liechtenstein towers over Vaduz, the capital city (population 5,500). Liechtenstein is officially a principality, where the Prince still rules as a hereditary monarch in conjunction with a democratically elected parliament. The Prince also owns the Hofkellerei (Princely Wine Cellars) in Vaduz, where you can taste his excellent wines. Afterward, walk along an educational wine trail in his local vineyard, where detailed signs describe the 50 different grape varieties growing there. More than 100 other vintners throughout the country also produce red and white wines of their own.
ALPINE FUSION FOOD The cooking of Liechtenstein is a creative combination of German, Austrian, Swiss, Italian and French culinary influences, producing a kind of local “Alpine fusion” cuisine. Soups are especially popular, from hearty meat-and-vegetable stews (split pea and sausage, smoked pork and sauerkraut) to elegant foamy white-wine soups served in stemmed glasses. Asparagus is a favorite vegetable, and the primary meats are beef, pork, and mountain trout.
Dumplings and potatoes are the main starches of traditional Liechtensteiner cooking, which includes shredded potato pancakes like Swiss Rösti and a variety of dumplings made from wheat flour, cornmeal or potatoes. Cheese is an important ingredient in the cuisine, from rich Alpine hard and semi-soft cheeses to Sauerkas, a kind of lightly aged fresh cheese made from soured milk. Desserts are as rich as you’d expect in a country situated between Austria and Switzerland. And wine has an important place on the table, befitting a country that prides itself in its small, but high quality, wine industry.
There’s a big difference between farmhouse fare in an Alpine climate and the fine cooking of Liechtenstein’s shrines of haute cuisine, several of which have garnered Michelin stars and high Gault Millau ratings. In the rustic restaurants you’ll find the stick-to-your ribs dishes like breaded pork cutlets, fried chicken, roast pork and Käsknöpfle, a large portion of little egg dumplings (like German-Schwabian Spätzle) tossed with a copious amount of cheese and garnished with plenty of crisply fried onions. Known as Liechtenstein’s “national dish,” Käsknöpfle is usually served with a separate portion of applesauce or a green salad, to counter the richness of the cheese.
FINE DINING Only 36,000 people live in this wealthy little enclave in the heart of Europe, where banking and financial services produce a GDP per capita that puts Liechtenstein in the top tier of the world’s richest countries. Such wealth supports a number of fine restaurants, rated among the best places to dine in Europe. These high-end restaurants tend to focus on lighter fare, artistically arranged on fancy plates—the kind of cuisine that combines respect for the country’s culinary traditions, an emphasis on local, seasonal ingredients and the imaginative use of modern kitchen techniques.
Highly acclaimed by many restaurant guides, chef Rolf Berger’s Restaurant Torkel serves haute cuisine in a beautiful setting. Located in a historic medieval building that was once a wine press, on the grounds of the royal vineyards in Vaduz, Restaurant Torkel is known not only for the quality of its cooking and its delightful ambience, but also for its excellent wine cellar. Choices on a recent daily menu in the summer included a delicious white wine soup with small yakitori dumplings on a skewer, Swiss prime beef filet in Port wine sauce, grilled sea bass in foamy smoked trout sauce, fresh berry parfait garnished with more berries and a good selection of cheeses. In nice weather, the perfect place to dine is on the pleasant stone-paved terrace overlooking the lush vineyards and the dramatic mountains beyond.
Another outstanding restaurant in Vaduz, the Marée at the Park Hotel Sonnenhof has won one Michelin star, two Gault Millau toques, and numerous other accolades. This is the place for fine dining in luxurious surroundings, from the elegantly furnished dining rooms to the large covered terrace facing the mountains and surrounded by gardens. The menu changes seasonally, four times a year, and features both traditional and modern dishes, all prepared with a light touch and plated artistically. Selections at a recent summer lunch included an appetizer of roasted scallops with melon, tomatoes, and fresh basil, followed by a main dish of crispy glazed breast of pork with fresh chanterelle mushrooms and cherries. Notable desserts were the colorful artist’s palette of house-made sorbets, and the basil sorbet with fresh strawberries and elderberry foam.
TRADITIONAL INNS For very good food at reasonable prices, the Landgasthof Mühle is the place to go. Located on the site of an old mill on the edge of Vaduz, this lovely little inn offers an interesting menu that matches the quality of the restaurant’s décor. Try the creamy Vaduz wine soup or the excellent house-made terrine with a large salad, followed by multicolored ravioli with foamy herb sauce, and elderberry sabayon garnished with fresh berries for dessert. Highly recommended for the quality of the food, large portions and friendly staff.
Long a favorite of locals and tourists alike, the Wirtschaft zum Löwen in Schellenberg is a traditional old inn located in a wood-shingled farmhouse with red geraniums blooming in the window boxes. Dine in one of the cozy, wood-paneled dining rooms or on the pleasant terrace with a spectacular view across the border to Austria. House specialties include the head cheese with onion rings and mustard sauce, and classic Käsknöpfle, those cheese-drenched dumplings with applesauce and green salad. Large portions of good traditional food served in a nice setting.
MOUNTAIN HIGHS Located in the Vögeli Alpenhotel in Malbun, a ski resort 5,000 feet above sea level, the Restaurant Alpenhotel is a cozy, rustic, pine-paneled restaurant—just the place where you want to retreat after a long day of hiking in the Alps or skiing down the mountainsides. The food is good here, and the portions are huge, apparently to satisfy those hungry hikers and skiers. The extensive menu seems to have something for every taste, including hearty meat dishes, a variety of big Rösti potato pancakes with garnishes, several pastas and cheese fondue. Warm up with garlic cream soup or creamy pumpkin soup with Styrian pumpkin seed oil, then chow down on the house-made game bratwurst with onion sauce, or deer Schnitzel with mushroom sauce. Be sure to save room for the traditional desserts (crêpes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream, battered-and-fried apple slices with vanilla sauce) or a big slice of the excellent cakes.
The Hotel-Restaurant Galina in Malbun is run by another member of the Vögeli family who owns the nearby Alpenhof hotel and restaurant there. At the Galina, the talented Norman Vögeli wears several hats: the hotel’s manager and falcon master (he stages an interesting falcon show several times a week), as well as the restaurant’s chef and pastry-maker (he supplies the delicious creamy cakes, fresh daily, for the Alpenhof Restaurant down the road). The food is very good here, including several large salads garnished with meats and cheeses, hearty soups, vegetarian main dishes, pizzas, cheese fondue and chef Vögeli’s tempting cakes for dessert.
And finally, down the mountain road from Malbun, stop off at the Cafe-Konditorei Gulfina in Triesenberg, for its luscious cakes and pastries, open-face sandwiches, and good variety of breads, all made fresh daily. Sip a cup of hot coffee and indulge in a slice of rich Engadiner Nusstorte—a regional pastry specialty, filled with caramel and walnuts—while sitting outside on the terrace that hangs precipitously over the mountainside, with a spectacular view of the valley below.
Two famous Swiss Christmas cookies: on the left are the Mailänderli, on the right, Spitzbuebli. Both will be devoured throughout Switzerland this season. Courtesy Swissmilk.ch/Ursula Beamish
by Sharon Hudgins
Christmas is my favorite holiday season in Europe. Advent, the period leading up to Christmas itself, begins on November 30 or on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, whichever comes first on the calendar. And in most places, the Christmas season doesn’t end until six weeks later, on January 6, known as Three Kings Day (or Epiphany).
Special foods are prepared and eaten at this time of year, some of them with roots in Europe’s pre-Christian past. During the cold, dark days leading up to the winter solstice (December 21 or 22) and Christmas (December 25), people have a natural craving for caloric cookies, cakes, and confections to tide them over until warmer, sunnier weather arrives. Yet not so long ago, Advent was a time of fasting for members of the Catholic Church, which forbade the consumption of butter, eggs, and other animal products during this holy period, in solemn preparation for the coming of the Christ Child.
Today, only a few people still deny themselves such temptations during the days leading up to Christmas. In many parts of northern Europe the annual Christmas baking binge begins as early as October, when home cooks make hundreds of cookies and dozens of cakes and puddings whose flavors are better if they “ripen” for several weeks before serving. Commercial bakers and confectioners hire extra help to produce thousands of holiday sweets for this most lucrative quarter of their business year. And colorful open-air Christmas markets in large cities and small towns sell the seasonal specialties of their own particular region.
Bakers in the British Isles start making their Christmas puddings several weeks or even months in advance of the special December day. Old-fashioned Christmas Plum Pudding—originally made with mutton, beefsteak, and fruits, including plums—has morphed in modern times into a dense, rich, dessert full of currants, raisins, and sultanas, with mixed fruit peel and candied cherries, steamed in a covered bowl and served with a brandy hard sauce made from sugar, butter, and brandy beaten together until fluffy. A sixpence coin is cooked inside the pudding, which supposedly brings good fortune to whoever finds it in his or her serving.
Also popular in Britain are a variety of fruit cakes, sometimes covered with a layer of marzipan and decorated with marzipan “fruits” and sprigs of holly—and small mince pies, their pasty cases filled with a fruity mincemeat mixture of apples, raisins, currants, sultanas, almonds, beef suet, brown sugar, and several spices. In earlier times, the oval shape of these mince pies was said to represent Christ’s crib, with the spices symbolizing the gifts from the East that the Three Kings brought to Bethlehem.
In Scotland, slices of densely textured Dundee Cake, filled with dried and candied fruits and decorated with almond halves on top, are served on “Boxing Day” (December 26). Buttery Scottish shortbread, taken with a dram of Scotch whisky, is traditional for the New Year. And in Ireland the holiday season is the time for loaves of fruit-and-nut-filled breads, as well as several kinds of round or oblong puddings made from wheat or potato doughs, sugar, spices, and dried fruits, wrapped in a cloth and boiled in a big cooking pot.
In the Scandinavian countries the Christmas season begins on St. Lucia’s Day (December 13), which is celebrated with coiled yeast buns colored with saffron. You’ll also find a number of yeast-raised Christmas breads (Julekaka, Julekage) made with plenty of butter and eggs, filled with raisins, nuts, and candied fruits, and seasoned with cardamom. Norwegian Almond Ring Cake (Kransekake) is a tower of baked almond-paste rings, the largest on the bottom and the smallest on the top, fancily decorated with white icing. Crispy molasses-spice cookies called pepparkakor are popular throughout Scandinavia, where they’re made in many holiday shapes and sometimes hung as ornaments on the branches of a special “pepparkakor tree” made of wooden dowels. And a traditional Christmas Eve dessert is rice pudding, with a whole almond hidden inside. Whoever finds the almond will be married before the next Christmas (in Sweden) or will have a series of lucky adventures throughout the coming year (in Denmark).
The Netherlands, Belgium, and northern Germany are home to crispy brown Christmas cookies known as Speculaas or Spekulatius, the dough spiked with ginger or black pepper and pressed into special wooden molds that outline the cookies’ shapes and imprint designs on them. Cookies in the form of windmills and little sailor boys are especially popular. And throughout all of Germany, the Christmas season seems to bring out the best in home bakers, whose kitchens are filled with the aromas of sugar, yeast, spices, nuts, and candied fruits combined in myriad ways to produce some of Europe’s best-known holiday treats.
German gingerbread cookies (Lebkuchen) have been famous throughout Central Europe since the Middle Ages, especially those from the city of Nürnberg. The stiff dough made of rye or wheat flour, honey, almonds, hazelnuts, finely chopped candied fruit peel, and spices—ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, cardamom, and coriander—is pressed into wooden molds that imprint intricate designs on the cookies. Other Lebkuchen cookies are made in simple shapes—circles, hearts, squares—and decorated with white or chocolate icing. No German Christmas season would be complete without plenty of Lebkuchen to nibble on during the entire six weeks from Advent to Epiphany.
Other traditional German Christmas sweets include flat, white, anise-flavored cookies (Springerle), made with pretty designs printed on them with wooden molds; spicy, round “pepper nuts” (Pfeffernüsse) containing ginger or black pepper; six-pointed “cinnamon stars” (Zimtsterne), redolent of that spice and covered with thick white icing; marzipan confections made of sweetened almond paste, shaped and colored to resemble tiny fruits, vegetables, animals, and other figures; Stollen, an oblong fruit-nut-raisin bread covered with a thick layer of confectioners’ sugar and said to represent the Christ Child in swaddling clothes; and Striezel, a braided bread whose three strands of dough symbolize the Holy Trinity.
Holiday treats very similar to these can be found throughout Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine. Many Poles and Ukrainians also begin their Christmas Eve dinner with kutia, an ancient kind of pudding made with whole wheat grains boiled with honey, figs, dates, raisins, nuts, lemon peel, and poppy seeds. And they conclude the meal with a sweet compote containing twelve kinds of dried fruits, symbolizing the Twelve Apostles. In Hungary, poppy-seed rolls and cakes are popular at this time of year, harking back to the pre-Christian era when the tiny seeds were eaten as a fertility charm on the night of the winter solstice to ensure a bountiful harvest in the coming year.
Christmas traditions are a bit different in the Latin lands. In France, especially in the south, it’s customary to have thirteen desserts for the Christmas Eve dinner that follows Midnight Mass—including fruits, nuts, dates, marzipan, nougat, and always a “Jule log cake” (Bûche de Noël), a long cylindrical cake rolled up around a buttercream filling and decorated on the outside with chocolate icing swirled to look like tree bark, with marzipan “leaves” and meringue “mushrooms” attached to the log-shaped cake. The French end the Christmas season with the celebration of Three Kings Day (January 6), when they eat a special “kings’ cake” (galette des Rois), a round, somewhat flat, golden-colored cake made of puff pastry, often enriched with an almond-paste filling, which has a single bean or a porcelain or plastic good-luck charm baked into it. Whoever finds the charm in his or her piece of cake becomes king for the day and gets to wear the gold-foil crown that was perched atop the cake when it was served.
In Italy, bakers turn out a number of yeasty Christmas breads (pane di Natale), full of butter, eggs, nuts, raisins, and dried and candied fruits. Particularly popular throughout the country is panettone from Milan, a tall, delicate, dome-shaped yeast bread studded with raisins, almonds, and candied orange peel. The northern Italians like their own Alpine fruit bread (Zelten), another yeast-raised bread chock full of dates, sultanas, candied citron, almonds, walnuts, and pine nuts, scented with cinnamon and cloves. The Italian sweet tooth finds satisfaction in all the confections traditionally eaten during the Christmas season, too, including chewy almond nougat (torrone) and marzipan; candied orange halves, candied pumpkin slices, and candied whole chestnuts; and medieval panforte from Siena, a flat, dense, highly spiced, confection-like fruit-and-nut cake containing almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nuts, honey, candied fruit peel, cinnamon, cloves, white pepper, and coriander seeds. And on Three Kings Day the Italians eat puff pastries filled with apricot preserves, as well as a type of sweet focaccia (flat bread) with a single black bean baked inside for the lucky eater who finds it and gets to be “king for the day.”
The Christmas season in Spain is a time for consuming large quantities of the confections for which the country is famous: marzipan from Toledo, often formed in fanciful shapes and sometimes decorated with white icing and colorful candied fruits; almond nougat (turrón), the hard variety from Alicante and the soft version from Jijona, as well as numerous other types of turrón containing hazelnuts, pine nuts, coconut, and chocolate; candied chestnuts; sugar-coated almonds; candied fruits and dried dates; the rich chocolates for which Spain is gaining an international reputation; and “fig bread” (pan de higos), a thick, chewy confection of dried figs, hazelnuts, almonds, and sesame seeds, flavored with grated orange peel and anise liquor.
The special meal on Christmas Eve in Spain often concludes with a sweet soup made of ground almonds, walnuts, or chestnuts, sprinkled with cinnamon. But for children the main event of the holiday season is Three Kings Day, when they receive gifts from the Magi who carried presents to the baby Jesus. As in other Latin countries, the traditional sweet is Three Kings Cake (Roscón de Reyes), a ring-shaped cake studded with raisins, nuts, and candied fruit, and with a coin, a bean, or a small toy baked into it—the lucky charm for the finder, who then gets to wear a king’s paper crown for the rest of the day.
The holiday season in Greece is also a time for indulging in sweets: pencil-thin bread-dough fritters fried in olive oil and drizzled with honey; coiled flaky baklava filled with ground almonds and roasted chick peas; spice cookies made with cinnamon, cloves, and olive oil, then soaked in a sweet syrup; delicate ground-almond cookies (kourabiedes) covered with a thick coating of confectioners’ sugar and with a whole clove baked inside to symbolize the spices that the Three Kings brought to the Christ Child.
Many kinds of special Christmas breads (Christópsomo) are baked in Greece during this season, too. Depending on each family’s own traditions, the Christmas bread might contain walnuts, almonds, raisins, dried figs, lemon or orange zest, cinnamon, cloves, coriander seeds, black pepper, and aniseeds. The shapes of these breads vary according to family preferences, too, as do the decorations on top, which range from symbolic shapes made of dough to sugar glazes and garnishes of chopped candied fruits. After the midnight church service on Christmas Eve, the family and guests gather around the table to share the Christmas bread. The first piece is set aside for Christ, and the rest is distributed among the diners, one of whom will find a coin baked into the bread, bringing that person the blessing of good luck. And on New Year’s Eve, the Greeks share another special bread called Vasilópita (St. Basil’s Bread), a yeast bread flavored with aniseeds or mahlepi seeds, honey, olive oil, and grated orange zest, sprinkled on top with sesame seeds and often decorated with the number of the new year made out of dough. The head of the household breaks the bread at the last stroke of midnight, giving a piece to each person at the table—and whoever finds the coin baked inside will have good fortune throughout the year.
European Traveler 