We all know that after the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day, he was the one who carved the roast beast. What’s the roast beast of choice on Christmas Day?
The Roast Beast
December 8, 2010 by
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By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
I guess I just don’t like ham.
This year it is butterflied pork loin stuffed with feta, spinach, and julienne-sliced red peppers.
Beets scare me. How do they get to be that color just from being in the ground? Do they attract the radioactive waste from miles around?
StillConfused, beets are awful things.
Mark: so, ham.
What about just a ham—with no spiral cut nastiness…
I guess I could get behind the idea of eating more ham if it were deboned by a cool robot that would probably be the first to turn on us when SkyNet goes sentient.
For me the true Christmas beast is ham, and we always have it for Christmas dinner. But my wife’s family is half-Swedish, so we also have Swedish sausage and Swedish meatballs.
In my family, it’s ham and funeral potatoes. (I skip the ham, but everyone else loves it.)
Swedish meatballs…yummy.
Does anyone in the states eat goose?
No tamales!? Where do I vote for tamales?!
I guess I’m the only one so far (first vote for goose) although last year I made duck.
No turducken?? (Just kidding–the idea of it horrifies me)
Scott Tenorman’s tears, and chili made from his dead mother.
My brother Aaron wants to expand on the concept of the turducken by starting with something small, like a cornish hen or some sort of song bird and build up to a cow or maybe even a buffalo. I like that idea.
As for my family, Christmas dinner has always been ham. Turkey is for Thanksgiving, and meatballs are for New Year’s Eve.
We will be having Lamb Fries for our Christmas dinner. I plan on setting a new record this year.
Ham and then on New Years, pork roast medallions. Double pigout.
Christmas Dinner is usually catch-as-catch-can, but Christmas eve dinner is always Tuna Casserole with sliced fresh fruit and barbecue potato chips. It is allegedly an Americanization of some lutefisk-related Christmas tradition from amongst my wife’s Norwegian ancestors. Goes down smooth.
We always go to my grandma’s house and she’s a stickler for tradition. It’s turkey. Turkey with NO other options; to suggest so would be like heresy. I’d love to have a roast beast for Christmas!
When my mother-in-law was alive, she would do crab cioppino and give out old t-shirts to wear because of the mess. Loved that woman!
The problem with ham is that it isn’t sufficiently special for a special occasion. Ham is cheap and easy and is an all-year-long food as far as I’m concerned.
The problem with Turkey is that it’s just a month after Thanksgiving and it seems a little redundant to have Turkey so soon. Maybe if you do the turkey in a different way it won’t feel like Thanksgiving II: Electric Gobble-oo. I have considered doing a butterflied maple glazed turkey this year, as featured in the latest Cooks Illustrated.
If I had a smoker I’d definitely consider barbecue Turkey, weather permitting (I am the BCC barbecue champion, after all).
I would like to start a tradition of doing prime rib and yorkies, but I don’t have the cash for the beef.
The wife likes ham and scalloped potatoes for Christmas eve, so I usually oblige.
Actually I don’t have a strong preference for Christmas Day dinner, but Christmas Eve is a “Bible feast” something like what we imagine the shepherds would have eaten – goat cheese, flatbread, honey, olive oil, a roast lamb shank, cider, dried apricots. By candlelight. Without silverware.
Chad Too’s Christmas eve dinner sounds delish, too!
#8: In our part-Swedish home, it’s the Swedish Smorgasbord (minus some of the most odd things — we haven’t had Lutefisk for years) on Christmas Eve and ham on Christmas Day (because ham is easy, says my lovely wife, who spends all day Christmas Eve preparing the Swedish Smorgasbord).
Actually my favorite is Christmas morning breakfast, which is basically leftovers from Christmas Eve’s smorgasbord, but mostly hardbreads and cheese and a Swedish Tea Ring. It’s eaten AFTER opening presents — a huge step up from my childhood when we had to eat a bowl of cereal before going in to open presents (the LONGEST bowl of Cherrios all year…).
Povitica!
I would love to try goose, but a single (!) bird currently goes for about $55 at my local grocery store. Ouch.
Tom – I do have a smoker, and I’m thinking about smoking something or other. I’d go for pulled pork, but we have it often enough that it doesn’t seem at all “Christmas-y.” Maybe I’ll take your advice and smoke a turkey? (I’m in Southeastern Arizona, so weather won’t be a problem :)
15 – Aaron FTW
You should probably save that for April 20
I am hoping for venison backstraps.
27: Pot roast?
My oldest brother is an absolute virtuoso of the bbq. He did an enormous roast beef on it for Xmas a few years back. One of the most glorious food-related experiences of my life. Truly, truly stunning.
Anyway, his crew can’t make it every year, so I am pretty content with ham. But the absolute sine qua non of the season has to be Grandma’s venison mincemeat tarts. Sigh… Only 15 days left.
29 it was a 420 reference . . .
Words that don’t belong in the same sentence: “Virtuoso” and “bbq”.
Scott, you wouldn’t say that if you’d eaten some of that roast. It was like looking into the face of God, and hearing Him reply: “You are my most wondrous creation!”
B. Russ, I think that harpchil got the reference–hence “Pot roast.”
Wow, so I’m the dumb one. Go figure.
If Hermione Granger goes to the beach and creates a sand castle by casting a spell, is that sandwitchery?