Each year in Martinique, Christmas rhythms with festivals, Chanté Nwels (christmas carols sung in small committee or in public) and family but also and especially with gastronomy. You can imagine, it is especially the buffet that focuses the attention of the greediest ones.
What do we find on these buffets during the Christmas season? Patés salés, red and white pudding and Christmas ham among others ...
What do we find during the Christmas meal? A stew of pork...
Thus, one could say that the pork is found under all the seams during the Christmas feast. This may seem surprising for some visiting the island because in metropolitan France it is mostly oysters, snails, foie gras and turkey that are traditionally found on Christmas tables.
First of all, it is necessary to dissociate the hexagonal French gastronomy from that of Martinique. With a different climate and products of the terroir and the various waves of immigration linked to its history, Martinique has been able to build itself a gastronomic identity of its own. Thus, it is more the pork that is found on our plates at Christmas. But why ?
A « so british » tradition
For the answer, one must go back very far in time. Where do you also eat pork at Christmas? In all former British colonies, including the United States! Now that we know that, how did we embrace an old "so British" tradition?
At the beginning of the medieval period, the Anglo-Saxon peoples conquered Scandinavia where they observe the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples celebrating the festivities of Yuletide. The feast of Yuletide was the day when the Norwegians celebrated half of winter and the pagan god Freyr the god of fertility, prosperity and fine weather. During the festivities, they sacrificed a wild boar and consumed ham while imploring Freyr to have a good year the following year. The English will adopt this custom and this is how Saint Stephen celebrated on December 26 (Boxing day, the day when the English open the Christmas gifts) was represented with the head of a wild boar in hand which he brought to a banquet of Christmas. Similarly, the Christmas ham comes to the plates of the Anglo-Saxons.
From year to year, this tradition was perpetuated until it was established in the colonies conquered by the British, especially in America. The Americans who were the kings of pork in the area, imported Christmas hams into the English Caribbean islands but only towards the end of the year. These hams that circulated between the British islands then interested the French who then adopted the custom of the surrounding islands. Thus for all in the Caribbean, this smell of the hams of Christmas meant the end of the year and the celebrations that are celebrated there.
This is how the Christmas ham also arrived on the tables in the French West Indies.
From Christmas ham to pork under all seams
It was delivered smoked and largely salted for conservation and non-tasting concerns. Once it arrived in the hands of the future consumer, it was desalted in water for 3 to 4 days.
Until the 1970s, hams were packed in socks and stored in wooden crates to facilitate shipments. After they were frozen they arrive from America and require a long stage of cooking before consumption.
It was not until the 1980s that a Martinican company took over and offered the population a ham from local meat. Indeed, it is the company "Marion" specialist so far of salting that will offer a pre-cooked ham with or without bone, followed by other local companies. It should be noted that even before this company marketed christmas ham, Martinican people themselves proceeded to slaughter a pig in their homes and invited all their relatives to enjoy it. No part of the pig was thrown away and the recovered parts were used to make other recipes. This is how the boudin, les pâtés salés or the stewed pork appeared.
Even today, pork remains the number one attraction on Christmas buffets tables in Martinique.
It is therefore a pagan tradition that we owe the tradition of Christmas ham.
Ironically, Christmas ham is no longer part of the traditional English meal replaced by turkey by Henry VIII.
