Welcome back to the Christmas Around the World Series on The Storied Recipe Podcast!

This series began as a crowd-sourced post titled Christmas Desserts Around the World. As the Storied Recipe community shared their cherished Christmas recipes and the memories surrounding them, I really wanted to hear MORE. So I decided to expand on a few of these with a little mini series about Christmas traditions all around the world. You can find the entire series here.

Welcome Kate!

Welcome to Kate Jack from South Africa for a delightful conversation about Christmas in the summertime! From the most stunning wreaths of succulents to relaxing around a floating pool bar, this conversation just may have you booking tickets to the Southern Hemisphere for this Christmas!!! Best of all, Kate shares her aunt’s recipe for Peppermint Crisp Pudding and we discuss at length a very new to me method of making caramel for this dessert as well as other traditional South African Christmas dishes. It’s a fun one today, so welcome to Kate and to you as well!!

Highlights

• Rainy Christmas days vs. Sunny Christmas days


• Spray on snow to bizarrely emulate decorations of the Northern Hemisphere


• The trend to Africanize Christmas decorations


• Succulent wreaths


• How Father Christmas can survive in the heat 😉


• Low key Christmas dinner foods for hot days


• How to make caramel from sweetened condensed milk

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Kate's Storied Recipe: Peppermint Crisp

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Transcript

Becky Hadeed

Hello hey, how are you?

Kate Jack

I'm doing well. Thank you and.

Becky Hadeed

You, oh I'm great. Thank you so much for getting on with me.

Kate Jack

It's such a pleasure. I'm looking forward to this.

Becky Hadeed

Me too. So first I have to ask you. Is your last name Jack?

Kate Jack

That's correct, yes.

Becky Hadeed

So your name is Kate. Jack, yes, that's. Such a great name.

Kate Jack

I'm married into the name, but I'm grateful for it.

Becky Hadeed

Yeah, it's like you're like the female protagonist to a Tom Clancy novel.

Kate Jack

When someone heard my husband's name, she said, "It's like that's a brand name." [Laughter}

Becky Hadeed

That's so well said that's. True, yeah, and you're feeling better.

Kate Jack

Much better I might cough a little. But lingering a bit, but so much better, thanks.

Becky Hadeed

Oh, I'm so glad I'm so glad. OK, well then let's jump in and talk about Christmas and South Africa. So, so first of all, we know that Christmas in South Africa during the summer season feels a lot different than we experience it in the northern hemisphere, but to back up a little bit, I am curious how Big South Africa is and how many time zones does it cover - and does it cover a lot of different climate zones? Does it depend on what region you're in, what weather you experiencing at Christmas time? Or is it pretty much the same for South Africans across the country?

Kate Jack

OK, so we have one time zone but we kind of almost could be two time zones, but officially we only one. So that gives an idea of the size. We are all in the southern hemisphere and so while our climate varies a little bit - like the West of the country where I live has winter rainfall and the east of the country is summer rainfall and it can get a little bit more tropical. Towards the northern parts, especially the northeastern parts, and some areas are a bit dry and some like you know semi arid. But we all. We all experience the summer, the celebration of Christmas in the middle of summer.

Becky Hadeed

And how hot is it?

Kate Jack

So degrees in Celsius, so that varies around the country, so it could be. Around mid 20s to 30s. Yeah, uh.

Becky Hadeed

Hot enough to be in the pool under the summer sun?

Kate Jack

Yes, yes, so some Christmases we do.

Becky Hadeed

Amazing, amazing and I guess of course yeah, so I'm looking, yes that's very warm weather.... According to Google, 25 is 77 degrees Fahrenheit, and if it goes up to 35 Celsius, that's 95 degrees Fahrenheit. So it's definitely squarely in the summer time weather for sure.

Kate Jack

Thank you having time, yes.

Becky Hadeed

And it's and it's mostly dry. You can pretty much guarantee that it's not going to be a rainy Christmas Day, because that happens in the winter time.

Kate Jack

So for us, it definitely is more common. We have a a dry summer, but it's quite bizarre because obviously Christmas days I remember and we occasionally do get rain. In summer, and it always seems to fall on. Christmas, but quite a few rainy Christmases we're sitting inside. But then I I do also remember Christmas days where we enjoy outdoor activities or outdoor Christmas feasts - we're outside kind of having a picnic or we are swimming. So that's also more common. Yeah, and generally the days around Christmas you're gonna have some hot sunny days around.

Becky Hadeed

Right, OK, so I guess when I think about how warm it is in South Africa... So much of Christmas preparations and creating the festive spirit around here is just about the decorations, you know. It's the lights on the house, which of course when it's getting dark at 4:15 or 5:00 o'clock in the evening, you enjoy them for hours. It's like a very wintry wreath. Everything is so associated with cold weather and the hope of a White Christmas, so I'm just having trouble visualizing Christmas, and especially the Christmas decorations in a hot climate. What does that look like if you go out and shop and there's Christmas decorations up. What do they look like?

Kate Jack

So, bizarrely, we still hold on to quite a Northern Hemisphere Christmas in a lot of ways. So definitely growing up it was