Take a bite out of these special holiday treats: Andrew Coppolino | CBC News

Special occasions demand special, seasonal foods no matter what the celebration.

From figs and pomegranates to clementines and sweet limes, grocery stores and specialty food shops in Waterloo region are now stocked with unique treats.

And with budgets constrained for many this year, “making less do more” is a strategy for enjoying delicious food moments without being too extravagant.

At this time of the year, Vincenzo’s in Waterloo sources special olive oil — a larder item many people already stock — for the holiday season, vice-president Carmine Caccioppoli said.

“For the last 15 years or so, we’ve brought over a Spanish olive oil. It’s beautiful. Very fruity and almost a buttery type of oil,” Caccioppoli said.

They also stock the crisp “pyramid” of pastry showered with icing sugar, Cristoli, along with the traditional crown-like, dome-shaped “big bread,” panettone.

A sweet bread dotted with candied fruit and a wonderfully buttery texture, panettone can also be found at all major grocery stores at this time of the year.

“It’s a tradition that we’ve been selling for years and years. Panettone for Christmas is number one,” Caccioppoli said.

“The one that has been our best seller is the Tre Marie Panettone Milanese brand. It was one that my mother particularly loved. For value, it’s a good quality product without paying a fortune.”

From panettone to fig balls

To compliment older food traditions that go back decades at Vincenzo’s, they also have newer traditions, including a more rare and unfamiliar fruit.

Dottato fig balls wrapped in fig leaves are a recent addition to the seasonal catalogue at the store, Caccioppoli says.

“They’ve become quite popular. They’re a specialty from Calabria, and they would be a great addition to a cheese board,” he said.

Oven-baked low-and-slow for up to 12 hours, the Calabrian figs evolve into a rich, creamy and concentrated “jam” that has a molasses- and licorice-like quality that can accompany a sharp cheese such as Gorgonzola or Pecorino: a delicious one-off pairing if there ever was one.

Vincenzo’s also brings in seasonal chestnuts: usually a popular Thanksgiving-to-Christmas treat, they suffer the slings and arrows of international shipping, supply lines and costing, Caccioppoli said.

“Because they are flown in, the chestnuts at Thanksgiving are often the best. The challenge is that period leading up to Christmas,” he said.

“The price drops, but the problem is that they have been shipped over by boat to keep costs down, and that’s when you get that variable. Sometimes they’re fantastic and they look great but aren’t as good inside.”

Like a present, you don’t know what’s inside, so Caccioppoli suggests buying only a few at first.

“We all want to have them for Christmas, but do a couple of tests first just to check inside.”

Just as a quaint aside, I was once picking through a bin of chestnuts, and a fellow chestnut shopper told me a childhood story from her birthplace in Holland. She said, “My mother used to heat up chestnuts, and we’d put them in our coat pockets to help keep our hands warm while walking to school.”

Jollof rice and candied yams

Certainly, not all special foods for celebrations have their eye on Christmas.

With Kwanzaa, just around the corner, celebrating the African cultures and heritages of the Diaspora, local observers might enjoy jerk chicken, Jollof rice, sweet potato casserole, candied yams and peach cobbler. Some might trek into the complexity of making “black cake,” a dense, rich rum-soaked Caribbean fruit cake.

At Ammar’s, a specialty Halal butcher and grocery store in Kitchener, you’ll find a deluge of dates: there must be more than a half-dozen varieties, including some fairly expensive and special ones since they are mentioned in the Koran.

There are also very hard and relatively inexpensive dried dates which, mixed with wheat and milk, might be used in a Sudanese porridge-like dish called elmussalammiya, the milk reconstituting the dates.

Otherwise, Ammar’s produce shelf includes fuyu persimmons (versus the larger hachiya persimmon), quinces (which can be found growing locally) and California pomegranates, now in season.

The tip from Ammar’s vice-president of operations, Faaez al-Hendi, is to be on the lookout for Spanish pomegranates which have a softer seed inside.

There are also sweet limes, a yellowish-greenish citrus that I haven’t seen before and which have both culinary and mixology application for any celebration during the year.

“They taste like lime and lemon but don’t have the sourness. They’re delicious for eating and for cooking, and I know some Portuguese families who use them for marinating chicken,” says al-Hendi.

“They could also be used in a mocktail to add some citrus flavour to a beverage that isn’t too bitter.”