Unusual food traditions
It’s getting colder and darker. The nights are drawing in. And there’s a spooky feeling in the air. Yes, it’s that time of year again – Halloween! And that means looking at some unusual food traditions.
While we’re busily showcasing pumpkin as an ingredient or dreaming up themed afternoon teas, some strange food happenings are taking place around the world. Here are just a few our Wimbledon cooks have rounded up.
Buñol, Spain
Buñol is home to the ‘biggest food fight in the world’ – La Tomatina. An annual Spanish tomato-throwing event, it’s so popular, it has to be ticketed to avoid overcrowding. It was temporarily banned during the time of Franco (from around 1950 to 1957), but the ‘prohibition’ sparked a ‘tomato funeral’. Its success brought the event back with a vengeance.
Now an official festival in the Buñol calendar, this unusual food tradition is attended by over 20,000 people throwing over 145,000kg of tomatoes.
Toraja, Indonesia
In Toraja, no feast is as grand as that of a funeral. In one of the most unusual food traditions we’ve seen, families keep a room and table setting for the person who’s passed on – sometimes for several months – until they’ve saved for their send-off. It’s a bit like having an open casket in your own home.
During the funeral ceremony, many buffalo are prepared and eaten, as the Torajans believe the deceased need them to travel to the afterlife. And when it comes to chowing down, delicacies include palm wine, braised pork and, of course, buffalo.
Gloucester, UK
It’s no secret that we love our cheese here in the UK, whether it’s homemade varieties like cheddar, stilton, Wensleydale or red Leicester. (In fact, Wikipedia says that there are close to 1,000 different varieties made in England alone.)
One unusual food tradition we can all get behind (literally) is cheese rolling. This is where a huge, 3.5kg wheel of cheese is pushed down a hill before contenders chase after it. If you can outrun it unscathed, you get to keep it. The tradition started in Gloucester (using famous double Gloucester cheese), but copycat events are now carried out in lots of UK destinations and even abroad.
Nationwide, Japan
Top chefs across the country are known for preparing one of the most poisonous dishes on the planet – the Japanese pufferfish (fugu). With years of training, it’s possible to remove the deadly toxin (although just a small amount is left for a ‘tingle’ when you eat).
If that wasn’t strange enough, Japanese folk have a very unusual food tradition around Christmas, where instead of a delicious turkey roast with all the trimmings, they opt for a KFC. It’s because Christmas isn’t celebrated in Japan like it is in the UK, so the fast food giant saw an opportunity to tie themselves with tradition. Since the 1970s, KFC has produced an annual Christmas dinner with cake, wine and chicken (and it sells in the millions, too).
Nationwide, China
It’s not so much a matter of unusual food tradition as it is etiquette, but when it comes to being polite at the dinner table, watch where you point the chopsticks! Waving them in someone’s direction, leaving them on the table angled towards another diner, and sticking them into your bowl of rice are just a few no-go areas.
And as for finishing your meal? Make sure you always leave a few grains of rice. It’s considered offensive if you scrape your plate, as it implies your host didn’t give you enough to eat!
Get in touch
While we won’t be serving buffalo or putting on a cheese rolling event here in Wimbledon anytime soon, there’s still plenty our cooks can rustle up for your next do. From Halloween feasts to winter spectacles, just get in touch with our Wimbledon cooks today!
