You Know the Holidays are Here

Posted December 1st, 2007 by Jen in holidays

world's best egg nog Oh yes, I must have my Eberhard’s old fashion egg or it just isn’t Christmas! I had my first egg nog latte of the season last week, and we’d already gone through about two gallons of this creamy, spicy holiday drink before December 1 hit.

Eberhard’s is my local dairy and the only milk products I buy - unless the organic milk is on sale, at which point I upgrade. This is not a paid advertisement, I just really love Eberhard’s! Even the coffee stand where I get my occasional egg nog latte uses Eberhard’s Dairy milk. I avoid the ones that don’t. I drive by Eberhard’s cows every day (they seem quite contented) and I like to buy local - it pleases me very much to know that my food didn’t travel 2,000 miles to get here.

And there’s just something about egg nog. Here’s a wonderful article by Kevin Weeks on the egg nog tradition in his family. Here’s a sampling:

Almost every Thanksgiving for 50 years, my father has made eggnog, which he then ages until Christmas — a once-common practice that mellows the mixture to the point where the alcohol is almost impossible to detect.

This liquid thread linking Thanksgiving and Christmas is a family tradition, a footnote in the long history of eggnog.

Weeks also reveals the secret family recipe, which you’ll have to begin in the next few days to allow for the nearly month-long mellowing - the secret is the aging. My friends who refuse to drink egg nog usually are afraid of raw eggs. Weeks address the raw egg issue:

Read my father’s recipe, or any other traditional recipe for nog, and you’ll find it includes raw eggs. In the case of my father’s version, not only are the eggs raw to begin with, but they’re then allowed to sit, unrefrigerated, for a month. Sounds like a recipe for something far worse than salmonella. But it’s not.

The FDA advises against ever eating raw eggs, but then the FDA asserts that everything on Earth should be heated to at least 160 degrees before eating — which would give plain old scrambled eggs the texture of shoe leather. In liquids, alcohol concentrations as low as 8 percent are enough to kill most bacteria. In the case of Dad’s recipe, I calculated the alcohol content at 21 percent of the total — nearly 1/4 pure alcohol. And that’s not counting the sugar, which is also a preservative.

Mmm, does your family have an egg nog tradition? I didn’t grow up with one, but I hope to create one for my own family, and so far, it starts with Eberhard’s! The roots of the American egg nog tradition appear to come from England, as noted in this Christmas lore site:

Drinking eggnog at Christmas is believed to go back as far as the early 1600s. Eggnog actually was a beverage that was common to the upper class in England during the 1800s. Eggnog is actually a “descendant” of a British drink called posset which contained eggs and milk but also ale. The word eggnog has an interesting etymology. It is believed that the “nog” in the word eggnog refers to a noggin, which was a wooden mug that was used to serve drinks in taverns.

Merry Christmas and Happy Egg Nog to all!!

12 Responses

Kathleen December 1st, 2007 at 10:41 am
I’m not an egg nog drinker, it’s much to thick and noggy, but I’ve recently discovered making lattes with it. Yum! What a great treat. Now if only we could get Eberhards!
Jen December 1st, 2007 at 10:50 am
Kathleen, I know, you love it or you hate it! But I’m glad you discovered the latte feature!!
e-Mom December 1st, 2007 at 11:37 am
Eggnot lattes… YES. A holiday indulgence. I haven’t started getting them yet, but I *have* ordered a couple of gingerbread lattes.

My mother used to make homemade eggnog for our breakfast every morning… a drinkable meal on the run. We loved them… but they weren’t thick and rich like the store bought kind.

We used to refer to our head as our “noggin.” I wonder what the relationship is to British tavern mugs!
Jen December 1st, 2007 at 12:00 pm
e-Mom, if can dig up your mother’s recipe, I’d love to have it! And the raw egg thing…I have a dear friend in Eugene who grew up in Albania…her mother made all the children drink down a raw egg every morning…for their good health.
heidi December 1st, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Egg nog is one of the harbingers of The Season. Even now that our family celebrates Hanukkah rather than a traditional Christmas it just doesn’t feel like the holidays until I sit down with a glass of eggnog and sigh. :)

And yes, Eberhard’s is hands down the best.
Dana December 1st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Contented cows are important. : ) Thank you for the recipes…I tried making scones last year with egg nog instead of cream. They were interesting, but the flavor wasn’t quite strong enough to really realize there was much difference.

And my husband used to drink a recipe of orange juice, milk and a raw egg for breakfast in the morning. But he is Australian. So we forgive him some oddities.
JHS December 2nd, 2007 at 12:52 am
This is my new family tradition: Don’t buy it or bring it into the house! It has too much fat!! Nobody needs it, including the husband who is supposed to be watching his sugar and cholesterol levels.

As for me, I have no desire to find the 75 pounds I have lost.

I may sneak a small glass on Xmas Eve, but that will be it!

Thanks for participating in the December 3, 2007, edition of the Carnival of Family Life, hosted this week at http://www.imaginif.com.au!!
Jen December 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 am
Heidi, ooh, “harbinger” is such a great word! So, what is a traditional Hanukkah drink?

Dana, boy, that Aussie! And I’ve been watching too many of the very old George and Gracie shows, in which Carnation Milk is the sponser, and mentioned *constantly* - if you ever saw these shows, you’ll recall “the milk from contented cows” - :-)

JHS, way to go on losing the 75 pounds! I would have to agree in your case, stay away! And I can’t imagine that a fat-free egg nog would even be worth it.
heidi December 3rd, 2007 at 12:10 am
Um… Whatever I have in my hand on December 4th. :) I honestly have no idea!
Imaginif child protection became serious business. » Carnival of Family Life in Australia December 3rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
[…] Jennifer in OR presents You Know the Holidays are Here > posted at […]
mandi December 4th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Yummy! We love eggnog in this household! In coffee, pancakes, french toast, you name it! We even love it poured over our hot oatmeal! But with that said I always cringe a little to use it in any other form than drinking it straight! My daughter called it ‘egg dog’ when she was two and the name stuck around here! So our tradition is to buy ‘egg dog’ as soon as we see it come out in the store each year. This year we found a new flavor - pumpkin spice! Pumpkin just so happens to be another great love of mine - these flavors married nicely! ( :

Warmly,
Mandi
Mandi
Jen December 5th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Mandi, you are opening up a whole new world of egg nog delights here! The egg nog french toast sounds really tasty. The “egg dog” is too cute. My kids have their little phrases, too, that they just won’t grow out of even though their tongues can now form the sounds.

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You Know the Holidays are Here

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