Chances are, every Christmas, there are at least one or two traditional dishes that grace your holiday table. But have you ever wondered how other countries celebrate the holidays? What foods do they prepare and eat with family and friends? 

We’ve rounded up five interesting festive foods from around the globe along with beautifully veganized recipes that might have you putting a bit of an international twist on this year’s holiday meal. 

Israel - Hanukkah Jelly Donuts (Sufganiyot)

In the Hanukkah Story, the menorah in the Second Temple of Jerusalem miraculously burned for eight days even though it only had enough oil to burn for one. To commemorate this miraculous event, many foods during Hanukkah are fried in oil. One of these foods is sufganiyot, a round donut filled with jelly. 

Once upon a time, because sugar was so costly, donuts were expensive treats to make. Cheaper fried foods like buckwheat pancakes and cheese curds were more commonly made during Hanukkah. Then in the 1500s, two significant events occurred which changed the Hanukkah menu forever; the cost of sugar dropped, and the German cookbook, Kuchenmeisterei, which had the first recipe for a jelly donut, was translated into Polish. By the 1600s, jelly donuts fried in oil were a popular festive food throughout Poland. This custom of making jelly donuts on special occasions travelled with Polish Jews who spread throughout Europe and the Middle East. 

In the 1920s, the Israeli Labor Federation declared sufganiyot the official food of Hanukkah. While many traditional Hanukkah foods were easy to make at home, sufganiyot are a little trickier, which meant the donuts were often made outside of the home, providing Israelis with jobs in baking, transporting, and merchandising. Today sufganiyot are a common site in Israeli shops and homes during the Hanukkah season. 

Sufganiyot make the perfect holiday dessert or decadent breakfast treat. Traditionally these light and pillowy donuts were filled with jelly or jam, but today they’re filled with a variety of sweet things; custard, whipped cream, and chocolate ganache, to name a few. 

Interested in making your sufganiyot this holiday season? Try the recipe for these easy jelly-filled donuts at theJewishVegan.com. 

Costa Rica - Tamales

Tamales are masa (gluten-free cornflour mixed with water) stuffed with a range of fillings, including meat, rice, and vegetables. The masa is formed into a rectangle, stuffed, and then wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves and steamed until cooked through, with the wrapping being used as a plate or discarded. 

Tamales are said to have originated in Mexico with the Aztecs when there was a high need for portable food that stayed fresh for extended periods and reheated easily. The tamales could be cooked ahead of time, were already packaged, and could be warmed in the ashes of campfires. Today tamales can be found throughout Latin America and the United States, with the recipe varying slightly from region to region. 

A Christmas season without tamales is practically unimaginable for almost all Tico (Costa Rican) families. Market stalls, grocery stores, and restaurants throughout the country sell piña de tamales, pairs of tamales wrapped in twine. A study by the University of Costa Rica showed that an estimated 196 million piña de tamales are eaten throughout December. The vast majority of them are made at home. 

Each Tico household has a different recipe for making tamales, though all usually include pork, rice, and veggies with a banana leaf wrapping.  The making of tamales is a long and laborious process that often involves the entire family forming an assembly line, with each person being responsible for a different step. The family-oriented nature of this cooking process makes it the perfect Christmas-time activity and the tamales are made in huge batches that can last throughout the year. During the Christmas season, Ticos love to invite friends over to the house for a tamaleada; a shared tamal, a cup of coffee, and some conversation. 

Don’t be intimidated by the tamale-making process, it may be long, but it’s not super complicated. Invite friends or family over to make some sweet potato and black bean tamales for a truly Tico Christmas!

Germany - Stollen

Stollen is a sweet, bread-like cake filled with fruits, nuts, and spices, and powdered sugar. Originally, stollen was a fasting cake made during Advent, leading up to Christmas, when Christians abstained from many earthly pleasures such as butter, milk, and fruit. Stollen was a very plain bread made of only flour, oats, and water. 

In the 15th century, some German noblemen, tired of their bakers having to use expensive oil in the baking of Stollen, begged the Pope over in Rome to allow their bakers to use butter. The Pope said no, and so did five Popes after that until the “Butter Letter” was written in 1490, allowing only the Prince Elector of Saxony, his family, and household to use butter in stollen. 

Slowly more noble houses were allowed to use butter in the baking of stollen, as long as they paid a tax, and eventually, the cake became known as the “food of kings”. Bakers in Dresden, the stollen capital of Germany (and probably the world!), have been baking stollen for kings for hundreds of years, and one was reported to be over 2,200 pounds! Today, Dresden remains the place to go for the best stollen, with only 150 Dresden bakers permitted to put the special seal of the king on their product sold at the world-famous Christmas markets. 

Want to make a vegan stollen fit for a king? Bianca Zapatka has you covered with her amazing German stollen bread recipe. 

Japan - Kentucky Fried Chicken

Christmas isn’t an official holiday in Japan, but that hasn’t stopped the Japanese from celebrating the holiday in their own unique, and to many strange, way….by getting a Christmas bucket of fried chicken from a well-known fast-food chain. 

Because Christmas isn’t really a thing in Japan, there weren’t many traditions connected with the holiday. In the 1970s, the manager of the first KFC in Japan, Takeshi Okawara, put together a brilliant marketing plan called Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii. The marketing plan involved creating a Christmas party bucket filled with fried chicken, Christmas cake, and wine and telling the people of Japan, “This is what you should be eating on Christmas.”

The company also dressed up their elderly white-haired mascot, Colonel Sanders, like Santa Clause. Colonel Sanders Santa quickly became a Christmas icon in a country that puts a high value on its elders. The trend of buying a bucket of fried chicken for Christmas quickly gained popularity. 

Today, about 3.6 million Japanese families eat at KFC on Christmas, often reserving their meal up to two months in advance or braving lines that last hours.  And that brilliant marketing genius, Takeshi Okawara, climbed the ranks in the American fast-food chain serving as the CEO of KFC Japan for almost two decades. 

Did you know that tofu, when frozen and defrosted, can develop a texture similar to chicken? It’s the perfect thing for making your own meat-free Christmas bucket. But don’t just take our word for it; check out this recipe for vegan KFC fried chicken, and see for yourself! 

New Zealand (or is it Australia?) - Pavlova

Pavlova is a meringue-like dessert made from egg whites slowly baked in a relatively cool oven. The egg whites take on a chewy-crisp texture on the outside, a soft and marshmallow-y texture within, and crunchy caramelized bits around the edges. It's a traditional and popular dessert in southern hemisphere countries like New Zealand and Australia, where Christmas is celebrated during the summer. 

There’s a lot of debate over this well-loved dessert. It’s agreed that it was named after the Russian ballerina Ana Pavlova, who toured Oceania in 1926. But New Zealand claims the Pavlova was invented in a Wellington hotel by a chef who was inspired by the shape of the famous ballerina’s tutu. Australia contends the dessert was created in the kitchen of a Perth hotel and named by a very pleased diner who claimed the dessert to be “light as Pavlova”. 

Food historians have spent a lot of time searching for the true origin of the Pavlova. Hundreds of recipes for a dessert that look remarkably similar have been found throughout Europe, some dating back to the Austrian Hapsburgs of the 18th century. 

Though the origin of the Pavlova may be shrouded in uncertainty, one thing is sure, Australians and New Zealanders alike can be credited with keeping the dessert alive and popular. Both nations indulge with Pavlova for almost every important celebration throughout the year, especially on Christmas! They have even gone as far as making Pavlova Christmas trees and wreaths! 

New Zealand’s own Nadia Lim has come up with an ingenious recipe for vegan Pavlova. How do you make a vegan version of a dessert that pretty much consists of only egg whites? You’ll have to read the recipe here and see for yourself! 

With many of us staying closer to home this holiday season than we might have in the past, we hope these foods will encourage you to invite a little bit of the world into your kitchen. 

Feliz Navidad! Happy Hannukah! Frohe Weihnachten! Merry Christmas!