This article is about the dessert. Baked Alaska, also known as Bombe Alaska, omelette norvégienne, omelette surprise, or omelette sibérienne depending on the country, is a dessert consisting of ice cream and cake topped with browned meringue. The name “baked Alaska” was supposedly coined in 1876 at Delmonico’s, a restaurant in New York City to honor the acquisition norwegian christmas desserts the United States of Alaska from the Russian Empire in March 1867. The dish is also known as an omelette à la norvégienne, or “Norwegian omelette”, which similarly refers to the cold climate of Norway.

A variation called Bombe Alaska calls for some dark rum to be splashed over the baked Alaska. The whole dessert is flambéed while being served. Flame on the iceberg is a popular dessert in Hong Kong that is similar to baked Alaska. The dessert is an ice-cream ball in the middle of a sponge cake, with cream on the top.

Whisky and syrup are poured over the top and the ball set alight before serving. Archived from the original on 17 June 2016. The Glutton’s Glossary: A Dictionary of Food and Drink Terms. Archived from the original on 19 August 2016. Some present-day Christmas customs and traditions such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others may have connections to older pagan Yule traditions. The word is conjectured in an explicitly pre-Christian context primarily in Old Norse, where it is associated with Old Norse deities. In Old Norse poetry, the word is found as a term for ‘feast’, e.

History of the English People”, written by Geoffrey Gaimar between 1136 and 1140. Yule is an indigenous winter festival celebrated by the Germanic peoples. In these sources, the tradition takes place on Yule-evening and consists of people placing their hands on a pig referred to as a sonargöltr before swearing solemn oaths. In the latter text, some manuscripts explicitly refer to the pig as holy, that it was devoted to Freyr and that after the oath-swearing it was sacrificed. Good credits King Haakon I of Norway who ruled from 934 to 961 with the Christianization of Norway as well as rescheduling Yule to coincide with Christian celebrations held at the time.

Yule had previously been celebrated for three nights from midwinter night, according to the saga. Haakon planned that when he had solidly established himself and held power over the whole country, he would then “have the gospel preached”. According to the saga, the result was that his popularity caused many to allow themselves to be baptized, and some people stopped making sacrifices. It was ancient custom that when sacrifice was to be made, all farmers were to come to the heathen temple and bring along with them the food they needed while the feast lasted.

At this feast all were to take part of the drinking of ale. But the meat of the animals was to be boiled and served as food at the banquet. Fires were to be lighted in the middle of the temple floor, and kettles hung over the fires. The narrative continues that toasts were to be drunk. In addition, toasts were drunk to the memory of departed kinsfolk. Bede as having occurred among the pagan Anglo-Saxons on what is now Christmas Eve, has been seen as further evidence of a fertility event during the Yule period.

Scholar Rudolf Simek says the pagan Yule feast “had a pronounced religious character” and that “it is uncertain whether the Germanic Yule feast still had a function in the cult of the dead and in the veneration of the ancestors, a function which the mid-winter sacrifice certainly held for the West European Stone and Bronze Ages. Yule singing, and others possibly have connections to pre-Christian Yule customs, which Simek says “indicates the significance of the feast in pre-Christian times. In modern Germanic language-speaking areas and some other Northern European countries, yule and its cognates denote the Christmas holiday season. As contemporary pagan religions differ in both origin and practice, these representations of Yule can vary considerably despite the shared name.

In most forms of Wicca, this holiday is celebrated at the winter solstice as the rebirth of the Great horned hunter god, who is viewed as the newborn solstice sun. Yaldā Night, an Iranian festival celebrated on the “longest and darkest night of the year. Nardogan, the birth of the sun, is an ancient Turkic festival that celebrates the winter solstice. OED Online, Oxford University Press, December 2019. Modern Pagan Festivals: A Study in the Nature of Tradition”. Wiccans, pagans ready to celebrate Yule”. It’s Solstice, Hanukkah, Kwannza: Let There Be Light!

Generally meeting in covens, which anoint their own priests and priestesses, Wiccans chant and cast or draw circles to invoke their deities, mainly during festivals like Samhain and Yule, which coincide with Halloween and Christmas, and when the moon is full. 5 things you didn’t know about Satanists”. So for the Yule holiday season we enjoy the richness of life and the company of people whom we cherish, as we will often be the only ones who know where the traditions really came from! The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology. An Icelandic-English Dictionary: Based on the Ms.