Eggnog

It's Christmas season and I will discuss one of the hated and loved foods of the holiday. Relax! I'm not talking about fruitcake (which I happen  to love), but rather the even more mysterious food- eggnog.  Eggnog in pure liquid drinkable form has a myriad of  ingredients  including : milk; cream; sugar; some sort of an alcohol like rum, brandy, vodka, cognac, or whiskey; whipped raw eggs; and sometimes nutmeg, cinnamon, or other spices. Today eggnog  a person can buy in the store often excludes the alcoholic ingredient, traditionally this was always included and was half the point of eggnog. It also leaves out raw eggs. Sigh! I am not sure of the point if you leave out the defining ingredients.

I fall in the category of hating to drink eggnog, but loving to bake with it. I make a great eggnog cake that wows people when I don't tell them I used plenty of eggnog in both the cake and the icing. I also make eggnog cookies too, a distinctively different taste that few dislike. Raw eggnog itself is unappealing to me, even nauseating.  For me drinking eggnog would be like eating a stick of butter. Both are great as ingredients but overpowering a when eating alone.

It isn't known exactly who was the first make and drink, but eggnog seems to have originated in Europe around the 17th century, very possibly in England. It was generally only drunk by the extremely wealthy due to the need for eggs and milk which were a rarity for commoners in Europe at the time. People of the day liked to mix alcohol with their dairy, so it's logical that they created eggnog to drink. But in our current day during the Christmas holidays, eggnog suddenly shows up on supermarket shelves (I bought a more pure version the other day to use in my eggnog cake I will make before Christmas) and as a new offering in coffee shops. 

But why drink eggnog at this time of year? It's because it isn't sold after the holidays. Makers of it know the demand falls dramatically and stop producing it after January 1st. You can make it yourself, but why do it after the holidays when the thirst for it has ended. Or better not....