Hubert Keller's Christmas in Alsace

By Hubert Keller

A James Beard award winning celebrity chef shares his family Christmas traditions and twenty of his favorite recipes from his boyhood home of Alsace, France.

From multitalented Hubert Keller, chef, restauranteur and Frenchman, a cookbook

commemorating the Christmas traditions he celebrated with his family in his childhood home of Alsace, France. Filled with personal reminiscences, beloved recipes and photos from chef Keller’s life, this cookbook is a tribute to the culture and food of the Alsatian region.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781449459253

Book preview

During the holiday fair in Ribeauvillé. Do you see the castle outlined against the sky in the background?

Maybe Alsatians celebrate so extravagantly over the holidays because of the long, dark winters.

From left: Homemade head cheese by Lili Baltenweck with foie gras buns made by Rémy Schaal. Ribeauvillé under snow.

WIHNACHTE CHEZ CHANTAL AND HUBERT

WIHNACHTE MEANS HOLY NIGHT in the Alsace dialect. The holidays are such a big deal in Alsace that Chantal and I always make a big deal of them at home, too. Maybe Alsatians celebrate so extravagantly because of the long, dark winters. Or maybe it is because our holiday traditions date back to the sixteenth century. One of the earliest records of Christmas trees is from Sélestat, a tiny town just a few kilometers from Ribeauvillé. Just as Ribeauvillé has its Medieval Christmas fair, Sélestat holds a fair to celebrate the Christmas tree. A huge forest of trees is created in the town for the children to wander through. It was not until the 1700s that Marie Leszczyńska, wife of Henri XV, introduced Christmas trees to the court, setting them up in the palace at Versailles. The trees were decorated with paper flowers, dried roses, cookies, and dried apples.

Me, Lili Baltenweck, Dany Haas, and his wife, Michele, at our holiday party in Alsace.

Everyone at home makes the most of the holidays. We shop the Christmas street fairs while drinking Vin Chaud and eating Pain d’Épices baked in the shape of St. Nicholas. The breads have an antique image of St. Nicholas pasted on them with sugar glaze. Children and adults alike peel off the picture, eat the bread, and hang the souvenir on their tree at home. And we buy or bake all the traditional holiday treats: Petits Bonhommes, brioche baked in the shape of boys with raisin eyes and buttons; the pain d’épices shaped or cut into squares and sometimes baked as loaves; the Christmas Star baked in traditional, old-fashioned star-shaped molds; and Anise Cookies. Kugelhopf and stollen are always included as well. The treats are set out in every household as buffets and offered to visitors—adults and children—throughout the day.

Dusk during the December holiday fair.

I was so excited when Ribeauvillé’s mayor took me up into the town’s bell tower and let me pull the rope to ring the bell.

I have not included a recipe here for stollen, which I think is more German than Alsatian in origin. It is basically a brioche dough with dried fruit, nuts, candied orange zest, and marzipan folded in. You can easily make a similar bread by using brioche dough and kneading in a half pound or so of fruits and nuts.

Early in December Chantal begins decorating our house—lining the front steps with poinsettias and hanging red bows all over. We set up a tree, and every year it has a new look. Usually Chantal chooses a color theme and then goes from there. When it was white, the tree was covered in white feathers. When it was blue, the lights and balls were blue and there were little mirrors to create reflections. Like everyone else, we have an ornament collection. Many are gifts from friends and Fleur de Lys guests who often choose ornaments in the shapes of fleurs-de-lys, burgers, and boxes of fries. By the week before Christmas, Chantal has set the table. She will have collected all sorts of decorations to fill out her ideas. For a red-and-white-themed year she set up a tray of champagne flutes and put a candy cane in each one to act as a stirrer for her champagne cocktails. And she bought solid chocolate Santas in dark and white chocolate. These were the place cards—she glued the name of each guest underneath the Santas. Finding your seat became a game of hide-and-seek.

For my first cookbook, my mom and dad sent me the recipe for Schnetzwecka, a traditional Christmas bread.

Chantal and me admiring Christmas window displays.

Every year, for many