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Next: 24 Dec 2026

Christmas Eve feasts

Wigilia in Poland, Weihnachtsplatzchen in Germany and the Feast of the Seven Fishes in Italian-American homes.

Photo: Carl Larsson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Christmas Eve feasts

On Christmas Eve, much of Europe sits to a meatless feast. In Poland, 12 dishes include beet soup, carp, pierogi with poppy seed and honey gingerbread; in Germany, spiced biscuits such as Lebkuchen, with cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, coriander, allspice and ginger; in Italy, baccala and panettone with candied peel and vanilla. Mulled wine, spiced with cinnamon, clove and star anise, is poured at the Christmas markets. The Christmas spice cabinet is a map of the Middle Ages' appetite for the East.

The spices

Poppy seedIn Polish and Czech dishes.

Also part of it, and being written: Lebkuchen (The German spiced gingerbread, with its own blend.), Star anise (In mulled wine.).

About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Christmas Eve" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

The weekly digest

Every Monday: seven spices you may not know, what is cooking this week, and one blend explained step by step.