The Unqualified Culinary Critics

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Welcome to the Unqualified Culinary Critics, a podcast centered around food and cultural experiences. We want to not only share our own perspectives in life, but hope that these stories connect in some way to each one of you as well. This week we're going to be talking about holiday foods. It is the holiday season, so it's time for us to, you know, do a seasonal episode. We're just going to go over our traditional family foods that we eat, what we usually expect on those days, which holidays do we eat, what all that good stuff. All right.

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So does anybody want to start off?

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Can I go last? I'll start.

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Yeah.

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So when I think of holiday food,

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the first thing that comes to mind is definitely Thanksgiving because that's mainly based around what you're gonna eat. Thinking about Christmas foods, I don't really have any like specific food for that holiday. I know that it's common to eat ham that year. The only thing I can think of would be like a traditional, at least in my family, traditional making gnocchi and stuff like that. Sometimes we'll even make stuffing for Christmas as well. But I look up holiday foods and look through lists and everything, and there's so many dishes and different kinds of food that I've never heard of and never tried. I did not know that there was that many. Like, what's one of them that surprised you? There was candy cane dipped rice. What? What? That's exactly what I'm trying to look into right now. It kind of threw me for a loop. I mean there's cheesecake, which I feel is reasonable. That's kind of... There's candy cane dipped rice crispy treats. Might help to click on the whole thing. Okay, yeah. I was like, hold on a minute. Yeah, so it's basically, oh, it looks like, so you're kind of just, oh, there's powdered sugar on it. It looks kind of good. You kind of just heat up more marshmallows and then you make your own Rice Krispies treats and then you put, you dip it in white chocolate and then you put candy canes on it as well and that's how they stick to the end of the rice krispie treat. Could be good, never tried it. I was never a huge fan of rice krispie treats. Yeah, well I love candy canes. Rice krispie treats, not my favorite, but peppermint bark as well since we're on the topic of more sweet stuff, the best. Yeah, well, we also do have a guest on right now if you're wondering who that other voice is, and it is Jose. Jose, what about with your family? What type of like, traditional holiday foods do you guys eat around this time?

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I'm gonna sound generic, but we do tamales, champurrado, it's like a type of a like a sweet drink sort of like chocolate but it's champurrado. This is weird but I don't like turkey. I don't like turkey at all. Like we don't have turkey during Thanksgiving at all. We do tamales, we do chicken, we do carne asada, you know, Mexican stuff, you know?

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Yeah.

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So we have that, beans, rice, you know, Spanish rice. Yeah, but yeah, that's traditional stuff. I have, I usually, like if I wanna cook myself, I rather, I order the tamales. I don't make it myself, so I could focus on creating the other meals, but I have a tamales lady that if you guys want, you know, I could hook it up. You know, she's really good.

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You know, it's funny. I actually was up really late last night making tamales.

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Oh, dang.

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Yeah.

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Oh, you know how to make them? No.

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I'm in the learning process. Oh, nice.

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But yeah, I was helping my mom make them.

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Oh, nice. I got tricked into making them once for this. It was a funny story. This one lady needed help with making tamales. It was for like a church thing, but I was just going to help her out for a little bit. And I asked my friend and then she ended up helping us out, but they tricked us into making all the tamales. We made like 200 tamales.

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Wow.

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Dang, that's a lot.

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Yeah. And then they were selling it back to us.

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I'm like, yo, bro, what the heck? No, y'all should have snuck some out.

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Yeah.

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And then, yeah, so I made tamales spice already, but I'm not good at it. So that's why I leave it to other people.

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Yeah, no, I'm bad at cooking too, but yeah, I had to make, I had to help out my mom last night. So I stayed up late doing that. It's very labor intensive. Oh yeah.

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It literally took us all day.

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But it's like a thing, right?

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It's like a, it's something that you do with your mom right like spend quality time you know with the family yeah yeah yeah i don't know how to make tamales well i'm learning so maybe i'll teach you someday yeah yeah we have like a podcast where we all you know sit around make tamales and talk yeah make it yeah like like uh what do you call it? Like a food network thing where we all cook our different dishes, you know?

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Yeah. No, but yeah, I guess I'll go next then since we're already talking about tamales. My family is the same way. We just do traditional Mexican dishes. Like even for Thanksgiving, we'll make tamales or like pozole. And like for Christmas, it's tamales or pozole. Sometimes though, my family will mix it up and make menudo. I was gonna say that yeah I was gonna say that actually. Yeah. So what's in that? Menudo um it's like it's similar to pozole like you can put um the jamonis is that what it's called in English? Yeah. You can put that in there um but it's the main part of the dish the main component is cow intestines. Okay. Yeah so that's like the dish and then you can put how many in it and it's like a big stew. Yeah, so we'll make that every once in a while. It's not something that we make too often because not a lot of people like it because it's one of those controversial dishes, which you can imagine why. It's cow intestine. Yeah, but I actually made it. Yeah, I made it two days ago actually. Yeah, I like it.

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Yeah.

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But yeah, so we'll just stick to the basic traditional Mexican stuff, which I'm not gonna lie, it's frustrating around Thanksgiving time because we always have tamales or pozole. It's always the same thing. And don't get me wrong, those dishes are amazing. They're so good. But sometimes I kind of wanna have a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. Like you know, turkey sounds good to me, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, like that all sounds delicious. And we never have it. So it's always a little upsetting. But I mean, Spamanas are still good, so I can't complain. Yeah. And mashed potatoes are always such a good, like, later in the year like fall wintertime holiday food a staple. They're so simple but they're so good. Well with your mashed potatoes how do you guys make them? Sometimes it depends um sometimes we've had um like if it's like we don't have time to make the potatoes all day. When I did have a friend's giving, my friend he had a huge pot and they like mashed potatoes by hand and everything and they had the skins in there a little bit and then they put a bunch of, not a bunch, but they put a few different spices in it. Some of the best potatoes I've ever had I don't know exactly what they put in it but it was so good. Yeah I don't like I've had to make mashed potatoes for like Friendsgiving before and I thought it was just like mashed potatoes and you know like butter but the time that I made it my mom was like oh you need to add a little bit of sour cream and I'm just like I've heard about that. Yeah and they were they were pretty good so it works. Yeah. It's weird but it works. I didn't even know that was a thing. Um but yeah what about you Ashley? What type of foods do you

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usually eat around the holidays? We haven't heard anything from you yet. So you were talking about just wanting to have like traditional American uh is kind of like holiday food so I actually do that kind of stuff for Thanksgiving and Christmas too but I mean we we will eat turkey because I don't eat ham I don't eat pork so I actually don't like to eat pork myself sometimes we would have steak so it's like either Christmas or Thanksgiving we would do that and then the comfort foods we would just have like I guess I can put salad in this list for right now but we would have salad we would have like the starch stuff, like mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese or stuffing and stuff like that. But I mean, that's just kind of us. But sometimes for Christmas, because I'm part Filipino, we would have like sticky rice, so you can do it sweet or you can do it not sweet, given that I'm not a person that will consume sweets. I would just prefer the sticky rice and my soy sauce, whether it's plant-based or not. I mean, I'll go for it, but that's just me right there.

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That's classic, rice and soy sauce.

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Yeah, well, I grew up eating as a kid.

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Oh, yeah, same. I feel like that's something that can never go wrong.

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No.

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No, never.

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It's just something that, like, it's a comfort food that, like, we just talked about in previous episodes. So, yeah. Yeah.

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Can I ask Ashley, what kind of salad do you make? Is it like a fall salad kind of thing, or just like whatever?

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Right now we're kind of just alternating. Sometimes we'll have Caesar salad, or my mom, she would make like, she just, she recently just got into eating arugula, but not like just recently, she's, I think we've been eating it before, but I don't know the benefits of it, but she'll add like any kind of arugula or romaine. It's just like getting our nutrients in and then she'll have this like oily, I don't even know the dressing, but I know it's not really caesar salad, but all I can say is that dressing

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is pretty flavorful and it's good. I know that you guys were kind of talking about it a little bit, Do you have any random holiday foods that are more traditional, just for your family? Hmm, I gotta think about that one.

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Traditional, you mean like that's different for everybody?

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Well, maybe just like what you and your family do that really only you know you and your family do, or just like a staple that is always kind of you have? Well, since Jose had mentioned champurrado, we usually don't do champurrado, we'll do atole.

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Oh, yeah.

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Which is like, you know, that's another like traditional food that is done in a lot of Mexican households. But like, yeah, but like with champurrado, I never really had that growing up. It wasn't until like I was like a teenager that I tried it for the first time and it was at my friend's house. It wasn't even like with my family. Um, we'll make atole and then with like atole, so champurados, just like this one specific flavor, but with atole, you can make like different flavors of it. So there's like the basic one. Um, and like, it's interesting because with atole, you make it with, um, masa, which is like a dough, but it's a drink. Um, and like, yeah, yeah. So you make it with like a bunch of different things. I'm not exactly sure, like all the ingredients that go into it, just because I'm not gonna lie, I'm not a fan of it. Or champurrado, so I don't drink it too often. But yeah, and like my mom, my family, we make this one atole that's like a guava atole, a guayaba one, that I haven't seen anybody else do, but like I'll drink that one because I love guava. Like that's my favorite fruit, so I'll eat anything that's guava flavored. I haven't heard of those dishes, but they sound pretty good. Yeah, like Jose had mentioned the champurrado is kind of like a hot chocolate and the natole is like, like I said, it's made with like masa, which is like what you use to make tortilla. So it's interesting.

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Yeah, that's actually my dad's favorite. He likes atole. Yeah, I haven't heard of that one. Yeah, see.

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Yeah. I feel like it's, go ahead.

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Oh no, I was just gonna say, what about with your family? So my mother and stepdad are both vegan. So when I spend holidays with them, it's kind of just like, if we do make food, this year I didn't spend Thanksgiving with them, they went to go visit family. But for Christmas, I'm guaranteeing that we'll have gnocchi or at least some kind of pasta, except the difference is that we'll actually make it from scratch on any other day. Oh, nice. We kind of just be, yeah. So that's what's really fun. And gnocchi, it can be, I know it can be either potato or something else, I'm blanking. But potato gnocchi, highly recommend. So good. Sounds good. It's so good. And it's the longest part of the process is just like making the little nuggets. I don't know if there's a better word. But yeah, it's really good and we usually do it every year. But yeah, I can't think of anything else that's like different because usually we'll kind of stay in the American tradition, but we just won't have turkey. And then we don't usually do like that, the sweet potato with the marshmallows on top. I don't know what that's called.

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Oh, yeah, yeah.

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I know what you're talking about.

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I don't know what they're called either, but... I tried it for the first time this year and it was pretty good. Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, those are really good.

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Yeah, it's like camote.

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Yeah.

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They put like marshmallows and stuff in it. Yeah, and it's like baked and it has like brown sugar or cinnamon on it. Yeah. I like it. It's pretty good.

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Yeah.

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I was a little nervous to try it, but pleasantly surprised.

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Yeah, I do that. We do that with, well yeah, same thing but we put milk in it like cereal. Mm hmm. Yeah, right. Sweet potatoes are comote, right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so yeah, you bake them and then you put a, well you put on the, it's sort of like you bake them, but you also like kind of like boil it. It's kind of weird but yeah, I do that's not a dish that we do it we put milk in it like a dessert and you eat it like cereal sort of yeah you do

0:15:44
I hadn't heard of that because I know there's like like you know the well it's basically like candied yams that yeah that's what it is oh yeah yeah and you know I just think it's interesting how like our cultures and like our backgrounds do affect what we eat on the holidays. Because like, Sierra, I know you're Italian and you know, you're talking about making pasta.

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Pasta.

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Me and Jose, Mexican, you know, tamales and pozole, all that. And then Ashley with her sticky rice. So it's really interesting hearing about like the different types of holiday traditions, I guess, from different cultures. And I'm just wondering, have you guys ever been kind of like culture shocked by like finding out that like oh for Christmas like we do this instead of that like by another culture like finding out the

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differences that people have? A little bit for me but at the same time it's cool to hear it because it's good to hear that somebody is doing something that is part of their culture but I never like heard of them actually do that kind of stuff but I mean yeah in an open ear and open mind like that sounds cool. That sounds interesting I don't know if I would do it, but it's good to hear that

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Like what was what's an example of that if you can think of one?

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Admittedly what you and Jose are talking about like I've heard of menudo, but I know what it is. I haven't tried it I don't remember But like like hearing you to talk about that stuff about the cuisines that you eat. Like I never heard of it except menudo, but I don't have anything against the stuff that you ate. I've also heard of tamales too, but like just hearing what you two eat during the holidays, like I said, I never heard of it, but it sounds pretty interesting

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and I wouldn't be against it. It's pretty cool dough. Yeah, well that's good. We're teaching you something, something new. Yeah. You can kind of like, I, it's weird because I feel like a lot of people think that they need to stick to like, we keep bringing up the American tradition holiday food, but you can literally make whatever you want. And it's, I think that's what's fun about it too, is especially like, if you have a friend's giving, somebody will bring over something that's just pretty random, but it's very good. And to them, it's like a staple. Yeah, that's like, um, this one, like one of the Friendsgivings that I've done, my friend had, um, she's Filipino, so she took lumpia. And I was just like, what is this, you know? And like, it's, it's so good. But yeah, it was like surprising, you know, I'm learning about like the different dishes that other people do. Because it's like, you know, it's something that you're aware. Cause obvious that different cultures are going to be eating different things for different holidays. But it's like, once you get to try it and experience it, it's something completely different in a good way.

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Yeah.

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At least from what I've heard, um, in my family, we haven't done it yet, but I know that there's a thing where it's like on Christmas or Christmas Eve, you order Chinese takeout. Is that just me who's heard about that or has anybody else? Um, yeah, I've heard about that. So, so what is that?

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Oh, no. What is that?

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So you order Chinese takeout just like as a tradition? Yeah, it's just like a Christmas thing.

0:19:05
I haven't done it. At least I don't remember if I've done it, but it's just a thing I've heard of. Like my dad would tell me like, oh yeah, like you just stay at home all day and then you order some Chinese takeout and then that's your Christmas, Christmas Eve dinner. Yeah, I've heard about it. Just because I have Jewish friends that do that. And it's something that's very popular in the Jewish community.

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I had no idea.

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Yeah.

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We've actually done that. It's more based on like we, we order what we want to eat. Like I remember I order sometimes chicken wings. Like we order a bunch of chicken wings for like for everybody. And then someone else orders like burgers. They feel like eating burgers. And then other people are like, Oh, we feel like eating Chinese. So we kind of, that's, we kind of do that once in a while for Thanksgiving or Christmas, you know?

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Mm-hmm.

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I guess it is a Jewish thing.

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I'm looking it up now. I had no idea. Well, it may have started with Jewish people. I had no idea. Wow, I'm learning so much right now. Yeah, but yeah it's pretty cool and like that's cool too what Jose said that his family does that they'll just like order food for everybody. I remember this one, oh I don't know why but that just reminded me of the one time that we didn't do like an actual traditional Mexican dinner for Christmas and we just made like a bunch of random things and I remember my um my tias made like a big pot of like, just ramen noodles of like the top ramen noodle things like the packet ones that you have to make in a pot. Like I guess they got tired that year and we're like, we're not cooking we're not making tamales, we have top ramen. I mean, that wasn't the only thing they made. But like, that's the thing that like stuck in my head the most because it was something that was so weird and so out of the ordinary. Yeah, like now I'm wondering if any of you guys have had like an experience like that, where like for a holiday you do something completely out of the ordinary. Not that I can think of. I mean, the most different thing that I've ever tried for a holiday food, I guess, would be, okay, I heard a name, but I Googled it and it was a completely different name, but I forget the name now but it had marshmallows, sour cream and then you put like tangerines and cherries in it. Oh dang that sounds really good. Well it was and it's like sweet and tart and I tried it and it was good I think for me it's like more of an acquired taste because I'm not a huge fan of oranges but it was pretty good but my friend had grown up eating it so that's why he made it for the friendsgiving and it was just like I've seen it before but I've always been too scared to try it and then I tried it and it wasn't bad it was pretty sweet especially something with sour cream in it. Yeah it kind of sounds like an ambrosia salad or something. That's exactly what it is that's what it is thank you for that it would have been annoying All right, it's been pretty cool listening to all your traditions, but yeah, we want to know if any of you guys, our listeners, have what your traditions are, what your cultures are for, you know, the traditional foods that you make during the holidays and all that good stuff. Go ahead and follow us on Instagram at Unqualified Culinary Critics and on Twitter at U-N-Q-C-U-L-C-R-I-T. And let us know, you know, we want to hear about you guys. You guys have seen how lively this conversation has been. We're excited to share our foods and our cultures with you guys. So please do the same. Do you guys want to add any last minute things? No, just thank you, Jose, for joining on the episodes and sharing your family traditions. And it was fun to hear more about those.

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Oh yeah, I think I really enjoyed them. I'm actually pretty hungry right now just thinking

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about food, you know? I know, I'm getting hungry. I haven't eaten yet today. Yeah, same here. But yes, that's why this podcast is so great because now, you know, we've heard about all these new yes, that's why this podcast is so great because now, you know, we've heard about all these new foods that we can go and try as well. Have a wonderful rest of your year and a wonderful, lovely 2023. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

Transcribed with Cockatoo