Christmas duck: not just a last resort
I can’t help but find the ending of A Christmas Story mildly offensive.
It’s not the lopping-off of a duck’s head or the terribly racist rendition of “Deck the Halls” that I take umbrage with but rather the casual implication that Chinese food on Christmas is a last resort.
Well, for me it isn’t, even if what constitutes a proper Chinese Christmas dinner is very loosely defined.
There’s no canonical dish one can expect at every table. Roast duck features in many homes for obvious reasons — not the least of which being that duck trumps that other holiday bird — but dumplings or fish are served just as often.
Some Chinese families don’t even buy into holiday cheer. While more and more Chinese people observe Christmas — just look at the increasing number of Chinese restaurants that, gasp, close on Dec. 25 — many folks still don’t care all that much.
To my family, Christmas means a day off work and maybe a present or two. The all-important Christmas dinner was more often than not served the weekend before or after Christmas, when all the adults definitely had the next day off and could spend time making more elaborate Chinese dishes.
Tilapia — either Shanghai and Sichuan style — is a mainstay, as are shrimp, yellow chive stir fry, stewed pork and some form of duck. More experimental dishes such as smoked duck or Korean pancakes come and go, lending the holiday a little unpredictability, for better and worse.
I don’t associate the holidays with any particular sight, smell or taste. Christmas trees, turkeys and cinnamon have no place in my household. Instead, Christmas has always meant a more general feeling of warmth and family.
Eating Chinese food on Christmas for us is less about asserting cultural heritage or observing tradition than simply enjoying delicious scallion and ginger lobster and reminding the older ones among us of home.
So I’ve always found it funny that eating Chinese food has become somewhat of a cultural event for Jewish people. Here we are, eating rice and whatever because it’s normal while another group of people have actually made this stuff part of a tradition.
And yet, it’s weirdly beautiful, isn’t it? A group of people uninterested in celebrating Christmas carving out their own tradition with the only two things open on Christmas: movie theaters and Chinese restaurants.
Unlike the Parkers trekking to a Chinese dive after their turkey gets devoured by a dog, eating at a Chinese restaurant means not conforming to the expectations and norms of the prevailing religion.
It seems fitting that two cultures not particularly enthused by the birth of Christ should end up eating the same food. Making the most of being an outsider isn’t really a Christmas theme, but it warms the heart nonetheless.
