only once a year

[lilmomma]

what foods do you eat only once a year? I pretty much only eat Thanksgiving dinner, including green bean casserole, cranberries, my mom's stuffing and the bird once a year. For xmas it waries so, not a once a year meal. What do you eat once a year and why?

[funniduck]

I miss Chinese mooncakes! Lotus seed paste preferably w/ double egg yolks. Mooncakes are only available during the mid Autumn festival, so I always end up over indulging.

[givemecarbs]

Tea sandwiches on new year's eve usually. Made with ham salad, egg salad and turkey salad to use up the last bits of the Christmas turkey and ham. Yum! Can't wait. Once in a great while these make an appearance shortly after Easter too when we have leftover hard boiled eggs to use up as well.

[KaimukiMan]

we have a family recipe for coffee cake that we only make once a year on Christmas eve to eat while opening presents Christmas morning. it's not a particularly difficult recipe, we just don't make it any other time. tradition, not reason.

[buttertart]

No reason necessary for traditions.

[jdub1371]

Christmas cookies.

Eggnog. Alton Brown's. Not too rich, not too sweet, spiked with plenty of bourbon. You can put many delicious liquors into eggnog-- brandy, sherry, rum, Grand Marnier, hell, even Kahlua-- but I only ever want it with bourbon.

[bklynite]

Like many others, the Jewish foods on the Jewish holidays. Matzah, matzah brei and matzah kugel on Passover, latkes on Hanukkah, and Hamentaschen on Purim. I'm a culinary Jew!

[buttertart]

See's chocolates. Only once a year because I live on the East Coast (and a good thing it is, too).

[rabaja]

See's is dangerous stuff. I got my family each a half-pound box of their favorite variety this year. I had to go back to the store a second time after breaking into my Dad's toffe-ettes in a moment of weekness a few days before Christmas.

[buttertart]

Lucky it was an assortment so I only hit the nuts and chews.

[jcattles]

Pizzelles & Great Great Grandma Julie's Christmas fudge. Only at Christmas time, and this year everybody wanted to make them, but nobody really wanted to eat them.

[jhopp217]

Greek cookies (Blacklava, etc). MY friend's mother is a baker and he makes the rounds delivering them every Christmas. I'm not a dessert person, but I'll make an exception for these.

[VaughnRmnE]

Italian Torrone! It was a holiday tradition since as long as I could remember. Way back it was Perugina - exclusively - and came in those tiny individual boxes with like cellophane wrap that had to be removed. We can no longer find them, so my wife found a suitable substitute on line, I believe from NY, where they import them from Perugia, Italy. I crave them at Xmas and never think of them again the rest of the year!

And re: turkey dinner...we were hit by the lightbulb a few years ago when we realized how much we loved that whole meal and we ate it once a year at Thanksgiving! So now we make every summer and love it just as much!

[ziggylu]

I love Torrone. As a kid, the Italian deli we shopped at carried the Perugina ones....Mom always bought us some when she went in weekly. Lemon was my favorite. It's so hard to find now. Williams-Sonoma carried soft torrone for years at the holidays but didn't this year. I found some small boxes of Perugina at World Market earlier this month and was very excited but it was the hard not the soft. I keep saying I'm going to make some and haven't tried yet. Where do you order on line?

We make turkey dinner about 3 a year. We only do all the sides at thanksgiving but will make a couple of the others when we make it at other times during the year.

Once a year we make creamed corn. I personally don't care for it but my dad loves it. He shouldn't eat it so we make it once a year for him as a holiday treat.

[jmckee]

Gethsemani Farms fruitcake and bourbon fudge. My chocolate champagne apricot truffles. Homemade Chex mix.

[nolapark]

Once a year, usually mid-August, I allow myself a trip to the boardwalk in Ocean City to eat anything I want- the menu generally looks like this:

Mack & Manco's plain slice
Curly fries w/malt vinegar
Johnson's caramel corn
Kohr Bros strawberry banana twist
Frahlinger's salt water taffy - teaberry flavor only

My husband happily splits the feast with me, but I wind up with a stomach ache anyway, which never stops me stop me from doing it again the next year...

[coll]

Sauerbraten, red cabbage and potato pancakes, sometime in October. I make potato croquettes the rest of the year when I want a labor intensive potato.

[ola]

Potato pancakes and homemade applesauce at Hanuka. And every year we say, "These are so good. Why don't we make them at other times?"

[small h]

I, too, only have latkes this time of year, but mostly because I'm not all that crazy about them, the grating is hard on my arms, and the frying stinks up the house. But! The hard boiled egg "soup" we have at Passover - I love this. And how difficult is it to hard boil some eggs, chop 'em up and throw salt water on them? Yet I don't. I just wait for Passover.

[LoBrauHouseFrau]

We only have turkey on Thanksgiving, prime rib only on New Years day. Ham we have twice a year, once for Christmas and once on the first day of spring. The main reasons being these meals can get rather expensive, and with only three of us eating them, we end up with lots of leftovers.

[magiesmom]

Matzo Brei, only on Passover ( so actually eight times because I make it each morning of Passover).

[lilmomma]

I love all these replies. Come to think of it there are more once a year treats for me.

Turducken at Xmas when my sister is hosting. so about every 4 years.

There's more but the kids woke up and want to open the gifts!

[smartie]

yes, funny how we only do Matzo Brei at Pesach.

Going the other way, Christmas Pud and Mince Pies are for Christmas Day only.

(Nothing like mixing the religions up!).

[Harters]

Mince pies are Godless. Banned after revolution in England in the 1640s as being pagan and, presumably, therefore too much fun.

[goodhealthgourmet]

yes! back when i could actually eat matzo, had to have the brei one morning for breakfast. i guess a lot of traditional holiday foods are really only once-a-year occurrences - charoset, latkes, sufganiyot...

[Bethcooks]

Christmas cookes, fruitcake and molded coke jello salad. I actually can't imagine eating coke jello salad except at Christmas - not even sure I like it but it is always brought by an aunt so I always eat a small portion.

[goodhealthgourmet]

Thanksgiving stuffing, and even less frequently than once a year because i'll only eat mine, and i dont make it every year.

[jfood]

I have my birthday cake once a year but mrs j has become more philosophical and euclidian about hers and will only have her birthday cake once every three years.

[Harters]

I reckon Mrs Jfood should take this new philosphy to the next level and declare her official birthday to be 29 February. Only for the counting of years, not gift receiving which may continue as at present.

[jfood]

great idea but she refuses to disappoint all those around the world who still wish to party on her official day...march 17

[gaffk]

So *that's* why I celebrate March 17! I always wondered why I felt compelle to go to a pub and drink Harp and Jameson's on that date.

[cheesecake17]

same here. once a year, must be vanilla. there have been years when I refused to eat the cake b/c it was chocolate or had some type of chocolate in/on it.

[OldDog]

Fruitcake. One slice, well buttered. Only once a year.

[shaebones]

Lobster. In the summer. In Maine. On the deck in Cushing. :)

[Athena]

No Thanksgiving where I live, so tomorrow is the annual turkey day, unlike harters, I really like mine...stuffing, cranberry sauce, vat of gravy, potatoes roasted in goose fat, sprouts with chestnuts and much more...it's once a year, because really, goose fat should only be consumed once a year.

[HillJ]

Chunky's only @ Halloween; I love em gooey out of the microwave.
Rich mocha cake with double frosting on my anniversary 'cause dh loves it (as much as he loves me!)
Light & lemony ice box cake created by my gf's Mom. It's so trashy but hey once a year!

[Barbara76137]

herring, both pickled & in cream sauce, at midnight on New Year's. Does anyone know the history of this?

[Harters]

The herring seems to be something popular with Americans with a German family background. Google is no help as to whether it's a tradition followed in Germany.

[Barbara76137]

Since I'm Bohemian, English & Irish I wonder why I grew up with it then. I remember a German friend of the family saying that if the first thing you ate and drank at the new year was expensive, then you would have wealth all year long. Herring doesn't exactly fit that profile.

[Goldendog]

My wife's family (grandparents, parents, and 8 adult aunts and uncles) emigrated to the U.S. the year she was born, 1956, from the Hamburg area. To this day they make 'heringsalat' every year for the holidays. It is a mix of salted herring, apples, beets, onions, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, all finely diced and mixed in some sort of sweet and sour vinegarette dressing. They claim they were raised on this as a once a year 'treat' and the tradition went back generations.

The funny thing is that although they wax nostalgic about this stuff and claim it's not Christmas without it, not one of them will eat more that the tiniest nibble. To look at, mixed in the bowl, it's one of the most obnoxious looking foods you've ever seen in your life.

[linguafood]

Never heard of hard-boiled eggs in herring salad, but apples, beets, onions, pickles in a nice mayo are the perfect herring salad. Too bad their version sucks so bad they won't eat it.

I miss a good herring salad over here (in the US).

[SherBel]

Shortbread, and those peanut butter/chipits/marshmallow squares. Why, you ask? Because these things are like crack to me.

[buttertart]

Chipits? Canadian, eh? I'd love that recipe.

[Harters]

Entirely traditional Christmas Day turkey meal. Same every bloody year.

[mrbigshotno.1]

Christmas cookies, we don't make or eat Christmas cookies any other time of the year.