About food
We don’t want to encourage you to prepare the family dinner. We just want to convince you that cooking is fun and that if you really want, you can make some Christmas food or decorations everybody will enjoy!
CRACKERS AND THE LIKE
As you well know from your English lessons, there is no Christmas in England without crackers. Crackers were invented by a London baker in the 19th century. They are paper tubes twisted at both ends, which contain a party hat, riddle and a little toy or figure. They might be very nice as a funny element on Christmas Day. I mad crackers once with my daughter although it is not a Polish tradition. We took presents paper, little sweets and we put there some quotations from songs and little tangerines. It was very nice. She gave it to all her friends. If you have children in the family, such “crackers” can be a kind of present. You can put there chocolates, sweets, little toys and fruit. You can make a few and give it to your little neighbours.
GINGER COOKIES
We have this little tradition of ginger cookies which we make and put on the Christmas Tree. It looks and smells lovely. They are very simple and any recipe will do. I tend to do them in the following way: I take a small jar of honey, 100 grams of sugar and lots of ginger spices and I heat it gently until it is hot. Then I cool it down and add flour. Some people add an egg. If you add more butter, they will be softer. But they are always OK 🙂 You add as much flower as needed, and then you roll it and cut out shapes. There are some ready little forms but you can also cut out shapes you find nice or funny. Once I remember we cut out a country toilet with a little heart in the center. And we always cut our family, too. This is funny! After baking your cookies (and remember to make whole to hang them before cooking – after they are too hard for that), you can decorate them with icing. Take an egg white and icing sugar and add some brandy or aroma, or lemon juice. Then spread it on your cookies. After doing it, you can put some decoration – like nuts and these colourful sweet balls or marshmallows. Such cookies can be a perfect present. You can try doing really big cookies (about 8–10 centimeters long and 6–8 centimeters wide). Good Christmas shapes are angels, houses, hearts and of course a Santa Claus…
Improve your vocabulary!
twisted – skręcony, zrolowany
quotation – oferta
tangerine – mandarynka
ginger – imbir
icing – lukier
marshmallow – cukierek pianka