HAIFA, Israel — It started with the vodka, of course. Each of the participants at a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner Dec. 1 at the Colony Hotel received a shot on an empty stomach. That was how one of the events of Polish Culinary Week began.

“We stuck to tradition, but people aren’t supposed to drink alcohol on Christmas Eve,” Arieh Rosen, who manages cultural events for the Polish Institute in Israel, told Al-Monitor. 

Not that it would have taken a lot to pick up the mood in the dining room, once the Christmas music got louder, the wine bottles were opened and the 12 courses — representing both the number of the Apostles and the months of the year — started filling the table.

Fortunately, when the vodka was served, the table was already laden with heavy black bread, along with three different kinds of fish, which kept the crowd from getting drunk quickly. There were two types of herring and “Jewish carp” — suspiciously familiar in form to "gefilte fish" (Jewish traditional carp paddies), including the jelly of course. This dish was prepared by Renata Bajorek, who chided me, when I asked whether the dish was prepared that same day.