The many flavours of an Indian Christmas tell stories of migration, memory and exchange

From bebinca and appams to plum cake and meat-laden stews, each dish is shaped by history

Kuswar is a collection of traditional Christmas sweets and snacks, popular in Goa. Photo: Joanna Lobo

India’s Christmas table is a living map of arrivals and exchanges: Portuguese traders, Syrian Christians, colonial encounters, tribal traditions, coastal flavours and mountain kitchens. And the festive season is when families lay out their histories on the table, each dish carrying the story of a place, a migration or a memory.

For all their differences, the flavours converge on one idea: Christmas is a celebration of labour, love and community.

In Goa, Christmas begins weeks before December 25, not with decorations, but with kitchen shifts: coconuts grated, cashews cracked, trays of doce (a festive sweet made with Bengal split gram and fresh coconut) laid out to cure.

“For Goans, Christmas is not a single day; it is a season,” says food historian Odette Mascarenhas. Kuswar, the grand platter of festive sweets, features classics like bebinca (layered Goan coconut milk pudding) and neureos (deep-fried coconut-filled festive pastries), and more rustic preparations such as dodol (sticky, dark jaggery-coconut fudge) and pinagr (a traditional Goan Christmas rice dish).

Mascarenhas emphasises community labour. “Almost every household still makes at least four to five items personally, especially the doce. No shop version can match the texture of the one made at home,” she tells The National.

Savouries offer another layered story: centuries of Portuguese influence blended with Saraswat, Kunbi and Catholic traditions. Sorpotel simmers for days and vindaloo is sharpened with vinegar and garlic. Turkey may or may not make it to the table, but prawn pulao, beef roulade, tongue roast and fish croquettes continue to anchor Christmas lunch.

Kormolas are traditional, sweet, crispy, deep-fried Goan Christmas cookies shaped like flower buds or conch shells. Photo: Joanna Lobo

“The younger generation might outsource some items, but many are returning to traditional recipes. They see it as reclaiming identity,” says Mascarenhas, who has written multiple books on Goa’s cuisine, including The Culinary Odyssey of Goa.

Meanwhile, across Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai, Anglo-Indian homes keep alive festive menus that reflect a hybrid heritage. For cookbook author Bridget White-Kumar, Christmas remains an emotion built on sensory memory. Growing up in Kolar Gold Fields, she recalls plum cakes in the oven, rose cookies crisping in oil, and carols drifting through misty mornings. “The tree, the crib, the paper star … everything added to the magic,” she says.

The cuisine blends British influences, including roasts, puddings and mince pies, with Indian adaptations. “The normally bland English roast was given an Indian taste,” White-Kumar explains. “Chilli, ginger, garlic and whole spices transformed it into something local.” Cutlets, croquettes and curries received similar makeovers to suit the local palate.

Cookbook author Bridget White-Kumar. Photo: Bridget White-Kumar

Christmas cakes had, and retain, ritualistic importance. Dried fruit is chopped weeks in advance, soaked in rum, baked early and allowed to mature. “Every family has its own recipe,” she says. “The flavours don’t change much. The nostalgia is part of the celebration.”

A traditional Anglo-Indian feast can feature coconut rice, meatball curry, buffards (traditional mixed-meat stew), vindaloo, yellow rice or pulao. Dinner is usually a roast – chicken, duck or pork – served with vegetables and bread rolls. Desserts include plum pudding, marzipan, coconut sweets, and home-made wines. “Christmas is a family festival,” White-Kumar says. “It’s food, togetherness, and giving.”

In Kerala, Christmas combines Syrian, Latin, and Roman Catholic traditions. The Syrian Christian table reflects centuries of trade, courtesy of spices such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Plum cake is a ritual, with fruits soaked for weeks, sometimes months, in spirits and spice.

Breakfast is often the centrepiece: lace-edged appams (fermented rice pancakes), stew simmered with coconut milk, and crisp cutlets. Grandmothers still guard the “correct fermenting temperature” for the appams. Too warm and it sours, too cold and it sleeps.

Meals vary from duck roast, pork vindaloo and kallappam (soft, mildly sweet fermented rice bread) to meen pathiri (Malabar fish-stuffed rice parcels) and biryani. Churches organise cake fairs, charity lunches, and communal cooking sessions, ensuring that recipes travel through parishes rather than individuals.

Christmas tables in India blend British influences with Indian adaptations. Photo: Bridget White-Kumar

In the north-east region, smoked, fermented, and fire-cured meats dominate meals among the Ao Naga and Sumi tribes. “Smoked pork with bamboo shoot is something almost every home makes for Christmas,” says chef and researcher Aketoli Zhimomi. Another favourite is pork cooked with axone (fermented soybean).

In Mizoram, tables may feature sawhchiar, a comforting rice-and-meat dish. In Khasi homes in Meghalaya, pumaloi (steamed pounded rice) is paired with pork. In Manipur, smoked fish chutney accompanies chicken or pork roast. Migration has carried these flavours to urban centres such as Guwahati, Dimapur, Delhi and Bengaluru, where smoked pork and axone are shipped across states to re-create the taste of home.

“Food is the connector,” Zhimomi says. “Even if you live far away, Christmas is the time you return to your mother’s kitchen, even if only through the recipe.”

Christmas in the city

Across cities, Christmas has expanded beyond community-bound traditions. Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Pune and Chennai host cake-mixing ceremonies, and bakeries offer artisanal rum cakes and festive menus.

Flurys on Park Street in Kolkata hosts its cake-mixing ceremony, an annual tradition that dates back to 1927. Photo: Flurys

In Kolkata, Christmas is officially ushered in at Flurys on Park Street. The popular bakery’s annual cake-mixing ceremony, a tradition that dates back to its founding in 1927, fills the store with the aroma of fruit, spices and spirits. Led by executive chef Vikas Kumar, the ritual of folding soaked fruit, warm spices and rum together is steeped in nostalgia.

The American Express Bakery in Byculla is one of Mumbai’s most enduring symbols of the season. “The bakery was started by my grandfather and has been running for over 100 years,” says Yvan Carvalho, who represents the fourth generation of custodians.

The bakery’s Christmas bestsellers, including plum cake, coconut toffee and plum pudding, continue to draw families from across the city. True to tradition, the fruit is soaked in alcohol and spices for months, says Carvalho, to ensure the depth and richness few modern shortcuts can replicate.

Plum cake from American Express Bakery in Byculla, Mumbai. Photo: American Express Bakery

At neighbourhood bakeries and five-star hotels alike, cakes, marzipan and mince pies stand for Christmas cheer. But even in cities, the centre of gravity remains the home kitchen as families WhatsApp recipes, ship ingredients and revive old methods. Some outsource, but many rediscover the joy of “doing one thing the traditional way”, says Aditi Joseph, a Bengaluru housewife.

Uniting themes

Across regions, certain ideas quietly bind India’s Christmas traditions together. Foremost is the belief that labour is a form of love. Whether kneading doce, shaping kulkuls, steaming appams or tending smoked pork, the food is intentionally time-intensive.

“Christmas cooking was never meant to be quick,” White-Kumar says. “The time you spend becomes part of the memory. Even today, families choose to make at least one dish the long way. That’s what makes it feel like Christmas.”