As Britain's influence began to wane in the 20th century, so did the reign of its festive fare. In Australia turkey and plum pudding were gradually superseded by dishes more fitting to the country's summertime Christmas climate: seafood barbecues and pavlovas, piled high with seasonal tropical fruit. Australians who still hankered for the traditional trimmings could enjoy a new date in the calendar: “Christmas in July” (celebrated on the 25th, of course).
Even in the colonial era, America remained ambivalent about the British festive menu. When imperial Britain was pushing its puddings on the world, America was busy writing its own story in the wake of the revolutionary war. The Cratchits’ Christmas table did have some appeal: America’s founders saw themselves as “gentlemen” whose culture habits were rooted in the British upper class, so they expected to eat some kind of roast meat on Christmas Day. But the new country’s elite wasn’t willing to entirely replicate the festive menu of their former oppressors.
Culinary choice became a symbol of independence. Today America's Christmas traditions are more fluid than those in most countries, and people may eat anything from chicken to ham to turkey (for many years beef was too cheap to be considered sufficiently celebratory). Even without its association with imperial oppression, plum pudding would have been a hard sell in America. As Ben Davison, a historian at Loyola University New Orleans, points out, Britons steamed the dessert on their hearths but American kitchens tended to be built around ovens. Christmas Day literally had a different architecture.
Our eating habits have changed extraordinarily fast in recent decades, as globalisation, open markets and open minds have widened our choice and our diets. The stakes are pretty low when you decide to try out a new dish for breakfast, lunch or dinner - these are daily occurrences, after all. Christmas, however, comes but once a year, and altering the menu is risky. When you mess with Christmas dinner, you mess with your memories too.
