Read the text and match the countries and the dessert names with the pictures
One of the most traditional and well-known Christmas dishes is the Christmas pudding. It's a must-have of every British and Irish Christmas dinner. This dessert is usually made beforehand and each family member makes a wish while stirring it. The ingredients of the pudding include lots of raisins and other dried fruit.
Another traditional cake eaten for Christmas is called Stollen. It's more like a fruit bread with lots of various spices, candied citrus peel and nuts. This traditional German dish is also made beforehand to enhance the taste.In France and its former colonies, another dessert is served for Christmas dinner. This cake is usually made of yellow sponge layered with chocolate cream. Then, it's rolled to make a form of a log. For this reason, it's called bûche de Noël, which means "Christmas log".
Next dish is eaten not only during Christmas time but also throughout the whole summer. As we know, there are countries located in the southern hemisphere, like New Zealand and Australia, where people celebrate Christmas in summer. As a dessert for this and many other holidays, Australians and New Zealanders prefer a meringue (egg whites whipped with sugar) cake which is usually decorated with whipped cream and fruit or berries. This cake was named after a famous Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova who had tours to these countries.
Nowadays, Christmas is a popular holiday even in Asian countries, where the number of Christians hardly reach 1% of the population. Nevertheless, it's considered to be a day when you can have fun with your friends or have a date with your partner. This is the way Christmas is usually spent in Japan. People don't usually make a family dinner. They prefer to have a meal in a restaurant serving western cuisine. Nevertheless, for dessert, Japanese people have quite a unique cake called Kurisumasu Keki, which was created to meet their taste and to somehow reflect the holiday. This is a simple sponge cake layered with whipped cream and often decorated with strawberry. This combination of white and red colours is used in order to symbolise Christmas.
- the UK
- Christmas pudding
- Germany
- Stollen
- France
- bûche de Noël
- Australia and New Zealand
- Pavlova cake
- Japan
- Kurisumasu Keki