Why The Traditional Polish Christmas Eve Dinner Features 12 Dishes (2024)
Brian Udall
·2-min read
The holidays are a time for families and friends to come together and celebrate the good things in life. Christmas is celebrated all over the world, but Christmas Eve is nearly as important in some traditions. In Poland, they celebrate the day with Wigilia (pronounced vi-gil-ya) or Christmas Eve dinner. At Wigilia, exactly 12 different dishes are served and one chair is left empty to welcome any stranger who may ask to join the feast.
There are 12 dishes to represent the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ,the 12 months in a year, and also because the number is considered financially lucky in Polish culture. Calling it a feast may be misleading, though, because this isn't a typical dinner where everyone eats until they're full. Wigilia is a time of symbolic restraint and sacrifice, and people tend to eat a little of each dish and then stop. Notably, the twelve dishes are all meat-free except for fish. For a long time, Christians were supposed to refrain from eating meat until the midnight mass. It's no longer required by religious authorities to not eat meat on Christmas Eve, but the tradition has continued nonetheless.
You'll find some variation depending on what region of Poland you are in, but there is a general guideline for what the 12 dishes are supposed to be. The night often starts with a beet borscht known as barszcz czerwony followed by a Polish favorite of soup often made from dried forest mushrooms. Then there are the fish dishes like Christmas Eve Carp which is either fried or baked along with a plate of Herring. Of course, you can't forget the famously delicious pouches stuffed with potato puree known as pierogies. Then there's the plate of hot, braised sauerkraut alongside a handful of golabki, which are stuffed cabbage rolls.
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And don't forget about dessert. There's the very traditional kutia, which is grains and candied fruit soaked in port or red wine. Old Polish piernik is a delicious but time-consuming to make gingerbread, and then there's Polish cheesecake as well. It's worth noting that this would be a very traditional Wigilia. Many Poles will stick to this tradition, but many are changing things up and with each passing year more people are opting out of one or a few of the traditional 12 dishes. It's, of course, an involved process preparing each dish, and some require work days in advance, so this occasional concession is totally understandable.
Tradition calls for 12 traditional courses to be served during the Polish Christmas Eve. This number is a symbol of wealth, the 12 Apostles and a representation of the 12 months of the year. But in the past, dinner consisted of an odd number of dishes.
Many Polish people try to have 12 dishes on the table. It should be 12 according to the number of apostles or months in the year. Most of the dishes served are cooked specifically for this special day, and only once a year. The preparation of the traditional dishes takes a lot of time.
The number of dishes still usually corresponds to the ritual number twelve, symbolizing the apostles or the months of the year. Since the meal is part of the Lenten fast leading up to Christmas, dishes do not include meat or dairy products.
A twelve-dish Christmas Eve supper is traditionally prepared to commemorate Jesus' twelve disciples in Central, Northern and Eastern European cultures, especially those that were formerly part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and neighbouring countries.
One of the oldest Christmas traditions of the Ukrainian people is the Christmas dinner on December 24. There should be 12 fasting meals on the table on this day, prepared without butter, milk, eggs, sour cream, and meat.
The meals must be vegetarian (with the exception of fish) as a sign of fasting and twelve different dishes are made, thus symbolizing the Twelve Apostles. The celebration ends with the exchange of gifts and a midnight mass in churches.
On the evening of January 6, on Christmas Eve, Ukraine celebrates the Holy Evening and traditionally puts 12 meatless dishes on the table – according to the number of apostles. As soon as the first star appears in the sky, the whole family sits down at the table and begins dinner.
The twelfth day of Christmas was known as Twelfth Night. It marked the night before the feast of the Epiphany, the coming of the wise men to visit the baby Jesus in Bethlehem. Twelfth Night might have signalled the end of Christmas, but people celebrated it with great feasts, games and plays.
As Lithuania is predominantly a Catholic country, it is said that 12 dishes represent 12 apostles (followers of Jesus). However, it is believed that 12 dishes were served even before Catholicism spread all over the country. Those 12 dishes represented 12 months of the year that passed.
Many Poles wait until the first star appears in the sky before sitting down to eat family dinner on 24th December. This tradition commemorates the Star of Bethlehem, which guided the Wise Men to the birthplace of Jesus Christ.
The Twelve Grapes (Sp. las doce uvas de la suerte, "the twelve grapes of luck") is a Spanish tradition that consists of eating a grape with each of the twelve clock bell strikes at midnight of 31 December to welcome the New Year. Each grape and clock bell strike represents each of the coming twelve months.
Estonians feast as many as 7, 9, or even 12 times on New Year's Eve, as they believe for each meal consumed, the person gains the strength of that many men the following year.
Tradition calls for 12 traditional courses to be served during the Polish Christmas Eve. This number is a symbol of wealth, the 12 Apostles and a representation of the 12 months of the year. But in the past, dinner consisted of an odd number of dishes.
Fish provides the main dish of the Christmas Eve feast across Poland. There are variations of carp fillet, carp in aspic, gefilte fish (Jewish-style carp), sweet with onions, carrots, almonds and raisins. Accompaniments consist of cabbage, cooked red or sauerkraut with apple salad.
The table is always set with an extra seat in case a stranger or the Holy Spirit should appear to share the meal. At supper's end Father Christmas, known as The Star Man (often the parish priest in disguise), pays a visit to each home with rewards for all the good children.
Polish eating habits are surprising in many respects. In contrast with much of the English-speaking world, a traditional daily menu in Poland comprises five meals, not three.
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