Christmas is this weekend, and this year many of us are looking forward to having a house full of people and a crowded table, but you might also be expecting to spend more than usual on holiday meal staples.
Lake Effect contributor and culinary historian Kyle Johnson Cherek says that the combination of inflation and supply chain issues are leading most households to expect to buy cheaper things, have less meat and invite less people. "If you're doing a Christmas ham [that] is up 54%. It's the highest price it's ever been in a decade," he notes.
While things across the board are more expensive, Johnson Cherek says, "Food prices have been dropping for the last three months, which is good news, if slowed. However, we’re still 10% over what they were last year, and they were already high last year."
The local restaurant scene is slowly gaining ground again as well. Going into the pandemic, Milwaukee had roughly 3,000 restaurants, according to Johnson Cherek. Post-pandemic its dropped down to 1,000. "In the past year we've grown back to 1,600-1,700 and we've added a number of openings," he says — including the two latest additions of Bridgewater and Lupi and Iris.
"Both of those restaurants combined could seat about a thousand people. ... They're really huge commitments by these restauranteurs to say, 'I think people are coming back and they're coming back in significant numbers,'" Johnson Cherek says.
While holiday meals may be adjusted, food trends such as cookie baking and cookie exchanges are returning in full force, according to Johnson Cherek. "Holiday cookies for me are an exertion of our American culinary tradition. Amelia Simmons who wrote the first American cookbook, 1796, and she was the first one to put in a cookie recipe. She spelled it completely different than we do now and [it was] something you probably wouldn't identify as a delicious cookie," he says.
Cooking baking is such a strong tradition especially here in Milwaukee, in part due to our city's collective German, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish heritage. "We're really the driving force for bringing cookie traditions over," Johnson Cherek adds.
Gingerbread cookies in particular caught on in the mid-19th century, when bakers first started to see wooden molds, followed by actual cookie cutters from Germany that the American market could buy.
And while you don't necessarily "cook" this next Midwestern holiday tradition, Tom and Jerry's are made from a batter, notes Johnson Cherek. He recommends going to Bryant's Cocktail Lounge in Milwaukee to have one of the best.
READ: Tom And Jerrys & Cheese: Wisconsin Holiday Favorites
"It made its way into fashion in New York in the late 1800s and even the early '10s ... and then it just dropped away, except for the Midwest where it just clung on," Johnson Cherek says. "... They're delicious, they're the furthest thing from low cal, they're very strong. I've heard them described as custard in a glass, and I think that's appropriate because we gave the world custard, and so why shouldn't we celebrate around the holidays with a drink?"
