The Origins of Christmas Food

Due to the occasionally repetitive nature of these prompts, I have already covered Christmas food, and I did so on a Blogmas post a couple of years back. So, settle in for a whistle stop tour of the history of our favourite, or perhaps not so favourite food.

The Christmas Bird

The turkey is a relatively recent addition to the Christmas table. In Dickens’ time it was more likely that you would find a goose in the oven at Christmas. One of the highlights of A Christmas Carol is the description of the Cratchit’s Christmas Dinner which featured a small goose, though no one would ever say it was small, mashed potato and apple sauce. The Cratchit family, like so many poor people at the time, did not have an oven, so they took the goose along to the Baker where, for a small fee, it was cooked in the big ovens that also cooked the bread. It gave poorer families a roast and bakers a useful little boost to their income.

The turkey, like many other elements of the festive table slowly worked its way from the Upper classes, when turkey was an incredibly expensive bird, to the rest of the population as turkey farms became more common and much bigger. The rules of economics meant that the bird became more affordable and therefore a fixture on many Christmas tables. It is interesting that it never became a year round bird, but instead remained inextricably linked with Christmas. I know many people, especially now, have moved away from turkeys at Christmas, but for me, it’s a non negotiable on the Christmas menu.

Christmas Pudding

Another part of the Christmas experience that is becoming less popular is the Christmas Pudding. It is very heavy, so we never have it straight after Christmas Dinner, but many people have done in their childhood and I think it has become synonymous with overeating and discomfort. This is a sad state of affairs because a Christmas Pudding, especially homemade, is an incredibly tasty dessert and, topped with Brandy, Rum or Whisky Butter, gives you a lovely warm feeling. It’s a pudding with a long history, from its medieval origin as Frumenty. Frumenty was a porridge, originally used as a fasting dish, but it became more of a centrepiece of our celebrations when spices and fruit were added to this previously unremarkable dish. We are very lucky in our house that my wife makes all the Christmas desserts but even if you buy the pudding, you really should consider giving it a space on your table.

Mincemeat

This is another medieval dish that has undergone a significant transformation. The original recipe did indeed include minced or shredded meat. It was designed to preserve the meat that couldn’t be used up, but which was much too valuable to throw away. The fruit and the sugars are the ingredients that prevent the bacteria that would spoil the meat from forming. In order to keep the texture of the dish, beef fat was used in times gone by, before being replaced by beef or, more recently, vegetable suet. Again, this is something best made at home if you have the facilities. My wife’s mincemeat is so good that I can never eat shop bought again. The best recipe is in the Delia Smith Christmas Book, which we have had pretty much throughout our married life, and can now be found online. If you are uncertain about it, reduce the recipe by half or three quarters according to how much you want to make. I pretty much guarantee you that you will not look at mincemeat in the same way ever again!

So, there you have it, three foods, three histories. I hope you have enjoyed the read and that I may have inspired you to try some of these for yourself.