Our Northern heritage is reflected in the foods we Aussies choose at Christmas. While salads and seafood may have gained great favour, many of us still choose the traditional hot roast turkey with all the trimmings. Thankfully there are signs that, at least in this area, times are achanging. Now it is quite acceptable to cook the turkey in the early morning cool and eat it cold at the Christmas table. Frozen Plum Pudding is also gaining a growing fan club. For those of us who like something festive to drink, a delicious cool bottle of excellent Australian wine or an icy cold beer complements perfectly, whether the meal be hot or cold.

Of course, the BBQ has always been the favoured method of many, especially if away on summer holidays. Or just to get out of the stuffy indoors, into the fresh air, in parks or down on the beach. And there is nothing quite like the flavour of roasted turkey, potatoes, and pumpkin cooked to golden perfection in a kettle oven while the heady aromas drift among the bright flower beds of the summer garden.

2 Litres vanilla icecream
1 cup chopped glace fruit
1 cup raisins
1 cup currants
1 cup other chopped dried fruit
1/3 cup mixed peel
1/3 cup chopped nuts
Rum or fruit juice to cover.

Stir the fruit and rum together and let stand overnight. Allow icecream to soften just enough to allow the fruit mixture to be stirred in. Refreeze the icecream mixture in a pudding bowl. Turn pudding out on to a serving dish and decorate with holly and glaze cherries.

250 grams Copha
3 cups Rice Bubbles
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup mixed dried fruit
1 cup milk powder
3/4 cup sifted icing sugar
A few drops of Vanilla or Rum essence.

Melt Copha and stir in all the other ingredients. Add the vanilla or rum essence.
Spread the mixture evenly in a flat tin, place in refrigerator to set and cut into 3 cm squares when firm.

Billy Can Pudding

Christmas Damper

Colonial Goose

Drover's Plum Pudding

Aussie Christmas Menu

Hayle & Jethro's Australian Christmas Receipes

Koala's Frozen Fruit Pudding

Christmas In Australia

Father Christmas Salad

White Christmas

Cathleen's Kitchen

Aussie Christmas Dinner with Craig

Australian Christmas

Over recent times in Australia the phenomenon of "Christmas in July" has gained wide popularity. Here, in the middle of our southern winter, a traditional Christmas meal with all the trimmings is served. Plus decorations, hats, crackers, carols, open fires and Christmas trees. It is celebrated by those of us Aussies who still feel that cold weather is more in keeping with the Christmas season.