BY MY PERSONAL calendar, the start of the Christmas season isn't heralded by Bing Crosby crooning on the radio or fresh-cut pines perfuming the sidewalks. Instead, for as long as I can remember, my family's holiday has begun in the kitchen, with the piles of flour and the steaming pots of water that go into the making of pierogi—the plump, crescent-shaped dumplings that are centerpiece of our Wigilia, the meatless Polish Catholic Christmas Eve feast.

Oh, the mixing, the kneading, the rolling. The mashing of potatoes, the...