Dondero: Internationally inspired holiday dishes without extravagance

Ah, the holidays. Don't they just scream food and drink? Typically, the feasting and traditions outshine a holiday's religious or cultural basis. That's human behavior throughout history. The trappings soon obscure the purpose, the ornaments hide the tree, the bathwater swamps the baby.

The very word "holiday," a synonym for festivity, once meant "holy day."

Anthropologic musings aside, some of the holidays do bring delightful feasting. I'll leave resurrecting the true meaning of particular holidays, whose loss some bemoan, to spiritual and cultural leaders. As a cook, my focus is the food of the season.

Season's four holidays

Christmas and Hanukkah have religious origins and observances. Kwanzaa, a more recent African-American holiday, has spiritual and cultural elements. Then comes the unabashedly secular New Year's Eve.

Christmas, though centuries younger than Hanukkah, is celebrated by more people and in more cultures. Not surprisingly, it is the holiday with the most varied traditional foods and drinks.

Most Christmas parties usually occur before Christmas, but the older Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions excluded meat during that period. Most dishes, therefore, were based on fish or vegetables until after the Christmas Eve liturgy.

Meat prohibition doesn't apply in many households anymore due to the Reformation, secularism and modernizing. But many traditional nonmeat Christmas party dishes remain.

One highlight from Scandinavia is lutefisk. This notorious creation of codfish dissolved in lye remains the dreaded delicacy in Norwegian- and Swedish-American families as Christmas approaches. With the gristly texture and taste of library paste gone bad, lutefisk is best accompanied by aquavit - plenty of aquavit - and preferably before eating the fish.

Hanukkah, in the Ashkenazic tradition that predominates in Jewish observance here, has one principal holiday dish - aside from the ubiquitous gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins. Latkes, which are potato and onion pancakes fried golden in oil, are homey comfort food more than party treat. They remind Jews of the miracle of one day's worth of oil in the menorah burning for eight days at the rededication of the Great Temple in Jerusalem. Given the prodigious volume of oil a frying latke can absorb in the hands of an unskilled cook, the modern-day miracle might be not gaining weight.

Kwanzaa, developed in the 1960s to celebrate the African-American experience and African heritage, is too recent and too varied in its observance to have developed specific dishes, according to my informants. The eats tend to be traditional, or lightened-up versions of Grandma's soul food, sometimes adding a dish or two of African origin.

Then there's New Year's Eve. Champagne probably is its most universal consumable. The classiest food specialty might be the oysters on the half shell, which the French favor with their bubbly.

However, the most distinctive New Year treat must be the Scottish haggis. That culinary marvel is a sheep's stomach stuffed with chopped liver, heart and lungs from the poor beast, enhanced by onion and oatmeal and boiled until tender. Its classic sauce is Scotch whiskey, which is poured liberally into the reveler, especially before facing the haggis. Offering something for each of the senses, the dish traditionally is accompanied by potatoes, turnips and the bleating of a bagpipe.

More effort, less money

This past year has been a wild economic and political ride. Perhaps the holidays will give some diversion, as holidays have throughout history. Observing some of the spiritual intent, however, probably wouldn't hurt, either.

Holidays usually involve extravagance. The special foods and drinks, at least for Christmas and New Year's, can be expensive. However, I'm proposing specialties that only are extravagant in that you spend effort fixing them. The cash outlay is modest.

The recipes

From all the potential temptations, I've selected five holiday treats, four edible and one drinkable, which draw on several traditions. While more associated with Christmas, they would be compatible with any of the holidays.

The fish p té appetizer, though a creation, hints of France or Scandinavia. The much-maligned, if inevitable, American cheese ball gets reworked with sherry and ground almonds.

Finely diced red and green peppers give the spicy stuffed eggs (it's subversive to say "devilled" during this season) a jeweled look.

And the sweet-sour Russian potato salad with beets gleams a festive rose color.

Glögg (or Glüg or Glühwein) is "mulled" - warmed and spiced - red wine in Northern Europe. Wassail is the English counterpart, historically made with ale, hard cider or mead. Both drinks are Christmas and New Year traditions. Hearty and festive, Glögg and Wassail are economical. But they obviously require more preparation than just pulling a cork.

► Fish Pâté

A delicious treat made, surprisingly, with tuna, this p té spreads well on crackers or baguette slices. Use oil-packed tuna for best flavor. Be sure the crackers are not salty or heavily seasoned.

2 (4-ounce) cans chunk light tuna, in oil

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

2 tablespoons ketchup

2 tablespoons lemon juice, plus more to taste

3 tablespoons freshly minced dill, plus extra for garnish

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons capers, drained (rinsed if dry-packed in salt)

Drain tuna. Mix together all ingredients except capers with fork until smooth. Coarsely chop capers and mix them in.

After 10 minutes. Mix again and taste. Add salt and/or lemon juice as needed.

Spoon into serving dish. Cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until needed.

Serve sprinkled with minced dill.

► Sherried Almond Cheese Ball

Almond butter, available at natural food stores and some supermarkets, provides the roasted almonds for this. The cheeses are available at the supermarket.

This recipe makes two cheese balls. Surround with roasted, unsalted almonds for an extra treat, if desired.

8-ounce package cream cheese

1/2 pound sharp cheddar or Jarlsberg cheese, grated

1/4 pound Asiago cheese (domestic), grated

1/2 cup almond but