Fond Christmas food memories

When it comes to Christmas food traditions, the two things that come to mind for me are fresh Dungeness crab and Chex Party Mix. Growing up in the suburban wasteland of the South Bay in the ‘50s and ‘60s, we kept ourselves in tune with the natural food world through our frequent camping, hunting and fishing trips with my dad and granddad. We had a small fishing boat that we would trailer over the hill to Santa Cruz for salmon fishing in the summer and rock fishing and crabbing for Dungeness in the fall. Dungeness crab is one of our truly local treasures and is still a holiday tradition for my family.
Our crabs were simply boiled in a huge pot with lots of salt water and a satchel of Old Bay seasoning. We would let them cool down in the night air outside and then clean and crack them. If we didn’t manage to catch our own crabs, there was always the Race Street Fish and Poultry in San Jose that cooked mountains of fresh Dungeness every day during the season. My mom would cover the kitchen table with newspapers, and we would make one big pile of crab in the center, and then seven sets of hands would simultaneously fly across the table, grab the choicest pieces and expertly open the shells and extract the succulent meat. This motion was repeated in rapid succession until the pile was diminished and all that was left were the tiniest legs and the pieces of carapace, which holds the tastiest part of the crab. When all this was gone, we then began picking over each other’s piles, searching for some overlooked nugget of crab. We had a cocktail sauce, but mostly we would ignore it because it took too much time to dip the crab in it – time that was better spent searching for our next piece.
The other piece of holiday tradition was Chex Party Mix. I loved Chex Party Mix, but it only appeared one day a year, and that day was  Christmas Eve. For those of you too young to remember, it is a bizarre concoction that is made by combining several different types of General Mills cereals with nuts, pretzels, melted margarine, spices and Worcestershire sauce, then baked until nice and crispy. It sounds disgusting and it probably is to many, but it reminds me of home and a simpler time. My mom put her own Southern spin on it by adding bacon fat and Tabasco. Here is the recipe for the other holiday tradition that always found it’s way onto our table: Take one envelope of Lipton Onion Soup Mix and combine with a 16-ounce container of sour cream. Put in refrigerator for one hour to let flavors develop. Serve with Ruffles brand potato chips.
We still eat Dungeness crab at the holidays, but alas, no Chex Mix or Lipton Onion Soup dip anymore, but, if either one were put in front of me, I would not say no. The crab has evolved into my own holiday tradition: roasted Dungeness crab with Moroccan spices (please click the link at the right for the recipe). The recipe is different from the simple boiled crab I ate growing up, but the holiday feeling is the same. Food is the conduit by which our feelings of togetherness and connection with others are shared. It really doesn’t matter what we eat at the holidays, as long as we are with friends or family, and maybe a little Chex Party Mix.