Last year Reba was out of town while the predictable psychological/existential crises kept me company, the year before we were in Seattle and on our way to Taiwan, and the year before that it was a wild time with all our Seattle folks while we were on break from Oxford. This year was different. Isa is just 7 months, so travelling would be a big hassle, especially the 9.5 hour trip to Seattle. The snowstorms over the eastern seaboard seemed to ratify our choice as fundamentally sensible. Also, the prospect of a quiet cozy one with the nuclear family sort of reached out to the both of us. So for a change, we stayed home and observed the peculiar ritual of a Hernandez Christmas.
La Nochebuena
One of the many little habits my family inherited from it’s Cuban side is the traditional Christmas eve dinner known as La Nochebuena. The Cubans inherited it from the Spaniards, and where they got it from is unknown to me. In our family, this is a meal which consists of the clearly traditional Lechón (suckling pig), the potentially traditional Cuban style black beans and rice, and the clearly adlibbed elements of Rioja wine, pecan pie, apple pie and pumpkin pie. For us there is no Christmas day meal, and certainly no turkey.
Clearly
Cubans, like all good people of Spanish descent, love their pigs. That is to say they love to eat their pigs. Trips to the old country abound with stories of trucks stacked high with pigs in crates, the Museo de Jamon, “vegetarian” salads with ham laid daintily across the top, etc. A bit more rustic than their continental cousins, the Cuban center their Christmas meal around a whole roasted pig. Thus, I have many fond memories of a whole roasted pig showing up to my family’s house on Christmas eve: apple in the mouth, grapes in the eyes, feet and tail still intact, etc. I’m not entirely sure if Spaniards do this on their Nochebuena or not. I bet not. In any case, the roasted pig is to the Cuban as apple pie is to the Yankee: classic.
Potentially
Cubans, and Caribbean people in general eat a lot of black beans. Predictably, the Cuban version starts with frying green peppers, onions and garlic in olive oil before adding the main ingredient, in this case black beans. This warm-up serves for just about any Cuban dish you can imagine, and was the rock upon which my Grandmother’s kitchen resided. To be sure, black beans are as Cuban as big beards and cigars, but whether or not this dish is common amongst Cuban (or Spanish) families at Christmas, I do not know. However, in my family this was always the required Nochebuena side dish, served with white rice. My father had a story to go with this about symbolism, Christians, and Moors, but I’m frankly skeptical.
Adlib
My dad loved Rioja wine, and who can blame him? It is without question the single most consistently delicious red wine on the planet. We always had this stuff coming out of our ears for any important Hernandez family meal, and Nochebuena was no exception. Quintessentially American, my mom made apple and pumpkin pies for the meals at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Quintessentially southern, my dad insisted on pecan pie as well. Frankly, I think my mom was more than reasonable about the whole affair, since she’s Irish, English and Scottish descent and always seemed patiently out of place amongst all this pseudo-Spanish culture. In any case, the wine and pies were simply our family’s particular spin added to the traditional dinner.
How Did We Do This Year?
I think we did pretty well. As demonstrated below, we had the clearly and potential* well covered, though we did fall short on the adlib by picking up a couple of bottles of Bordeaux at the local Nicolas instead of finding some Rioja. Realizing this mistake too late, Reba purchased a bottle of Cava to balance things out, but that’s really backwards if you think about it. I also had fun making my own apple sauce, really not that hard to do, but quite satisfying in a hands-on sort of way.
before dinner: the spread
after dinner: pies and pajamas
*Segue: Spitalfields and the Potential
The Spitalfields market is an old London market that has lots of butchers. Trying to keep up with tradition, I emailed one of the butchers to reserve a Lechón. The owner wrote me back several times as I posed various questions, but oddly would only reply at 1AM. Maybe meat markets are like fish markets from a schedule perspective? After several mails back and forth about cost, size and origin of the pig, etc., I placed my order, only to receive the following at 1:52AM on 22 December:
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From: Tom Absalom <TomAbsalom@absalomandtribe.co.uk>
To: Hernandez, Ean
Sent: Tue Dec 22 01:52:10 2009
Subject: RE: Suckling pig for Christmas
Hi Ean.
We don't have a suckling pig small enough to fit your oven. If it is
acceptable for you I can cut the suckling pig in half for you to make it fit
your oven.
If you come to my shop between 2am and 8am tomorrow, December 23rd, I will
hold the smallest suckling pig I can find for you. You will need to pay cash
for it when you collect the meat.
Please let me know if this is OK. I look forward to hearing from you.
Tom
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Having no intention of making it downtown to Spitalfields before 8AM on my day off, I was somewhat relieved to avoid dealing with a cut in half pig. Would I have taken it on the tube with me? In a cab?
In the end, the meal was a success even without a whole (or half) pig. We got a very nice pork roast from the local butcher shop, which is excellent and did not disappoint. Finally, I tried to honor my and my brothers’ tradition of drinking a bunch of cognac after dinner. It’s really not the same without you guys.
And Now, What You’ve All Been Waiting For…
Obscure family traditions are great and all, but what everybody really wants to see are pictures of the baby on Christmas morning, an event that we keep 100% American.
Merry Christmas, dear friends and family around the globe. Much love to you all from myself, Reba, and baby Isa!
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