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The Polish traditional Christmas eve feast, Wigilia, has changed very little in its structure since it first started to be celebrated hundreds of years ago. Possibly the clearest proof of this is that the feast is meatless: in the older forms of Christianity, because Christmas Eve still falls in Advent, which is a fasting season, meat is not permitted until the fast breaks on Christmas Day. Only the quantity of food available breaks with the older Catholic tradition of fasting, in which the amount of food eaten on a fast day was also regulated. One polish tradition is to fast "until the first star, Gwiazdka, appears in the sky." But there is also a a Polish saying, "As Christmas goes, so goes the next year" -- so the idea is that, after that first star appears, the family should eat well and sumptuously on this special night, so that the New Year will reflect the same plenty and good cheer.

There are usually twelve dishes in this supper, representing - depending on who you ask -- the twelve months of the year, or the Twelve Apostles. (Other Polish traditions suggest that the number of dishes should be odd.) The most traditional forms of the feast start with family members and guests sharing oblatek, a special Christmas wafer, symbolic both of the holiday and of the general sacredness of breaking bread. After that comes a soup -- either fish- or vegetable-based: borscht is a favorite -- followed by fish dishes, both hot and cold. Some dishes normally made with meat, such as the savory dumplings called pierogis, turn up stuffed with fish instead, or with vegetables or mushrooms. Other traditional dishes appearing on the table include red borscht, mushroom or fish soup, sauerkraut with wild mushrooms or peas, dried fruit compote and kutia, a dessert of eastern Poland. Regional variations abound: as long as there are twelve dishes, people in given areas of Poland will substitute some favorite or specialty of the area where they live.

Click on "read more" for an assortment of typical Wigilia dishes.

(Polish speakers: don't forget to visit Wigilia.pl.)

Crubeens would be one of the relatively few dishes whose name in Ireland sounds about the same in English and as Gaeilge -- because "crubeens" comes directly from the Irish cruibíni, "trotters" or "pig's feet". All through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, crubeens were widely sold in Ireland as street food, snack food, and the quintessential bar food. Publicans would often serve big bowls of them right at the bar; they knew that the yummy, gummy, bacon-y, salty finger food would make their patrons literally thirsty for just one more pint. Indeed, the pint of stout -- Guinness in much of the country, or Beamish down south by its home in Cork -- was always the preferred accompaniment for crubeens, along with soda bread. People sometimes purposely started shops or stalls selling crubeens next to some handy pub that didn't sell them itself.

In the mid-to-late 20th century, crubeens started to get harder to find in Ireland as people grew more interested in other more exotic or less rustic kinds of snack food. But the dish is now experiencing a renaissance in popularity, turning up in high-profile competitions among European celebrity TV chefs, and on the menus of high-priced restaurants. Some of the treatments the pigs' feet receive in these places are completely unrelated to the way they would traditionally have appeared when served at a pub's bar or at an Irish country town's crubeen stall. But there are still restaurants, pubs and shops or stalls, especially in the south of the country, where fresh, hot, crunchy crubeens in the traditional style can be found. This particular food tradition -- for good reason -- seems not to be going away. Try them yourself and see why!

(Click "read more" for details and recipes...)