Are you a fan? Probably not, you’re all too progressive* and cool. Personally I love it – yes, including turkey. I am the only person I know who actually likes turkey, and I’m actually quite sad when it’s finally finished about three days before Easter.
The thing about Christmas dinner itself is that, like the so-called Traditional English Breakfast, everyone has their own very fixed ideas about what it is and yet every few years something new gets added to it. I had no knowledge of the satirical penis-impersonation that is the pig in blanket before about 2000, and yet people go on about it as if it’s been part of Christmas since Joseph and Mary parked their saddle-sore arses in the stable.
Anyway this is inspired by this very entertaining endurance feat involving Christmas dinners: in spite of its justified reputation for po-faced finger-wagging, the Guardian does occasionally provide moments of fun.
I particularly like: “….you realise it’s served with mashed potato. This is such a heinous Christmas-dinner crime that (like William Wallace) whoever was responsible should be hauled to the Tower of London, stripped, tied to a hurdle, dragged through the streets by horses, hanged, drawn, quartered, and his bowels incinerated before him. And don’t get me started on the total non-existence of sprouts.”
So, here it is. In two weeks anyway.
Dinner, do you still do that? English people are weird!
etc
What is Supper?
Answer: A pretentious name used by ex lower class people who have come into money to describe what they would used to have called tea.
Tea is dinner. Supper comes later. Supper is not pretentious unless you have foie gras on brioche or something.
Dinner is at 6ish and supper is before bed. Or used to be anyway. I used to have a bowl of cornflakes for supper with so much sugar on there was a delicious 1/8th inch of undissolved granules on the base of the bowl to crunch through, which is why my teeth are 90% metal.
When I was growing up, it was :
Breakfast (toast, cereal mainly)
Dinner (main meal at school)
Tea (high tea if cooked)
Supper (more a late night snack)
Now it’s
Breakfast
Lunch
DInner or Supper
I eat different things from when I was a kid then eating stuff my parents prepared
Lunch: toasted bagel with cold meat and jalapeños, during the week, at 1pm, muesli, berries and yog at the w/e, anytime between 11 and 2.
Tea: whatever we eat in the evening.
That’ll do
No wonder I lost a stone ahead of my gall bag op, still now reticent to stoke up on all the things I missed, like cheese, bacon, salami, black pudding. Did us a roast pork dinner for tea on Sunday mind. Was crackling always that oily?
That’s my childhood eating described perfectly, too. ‘Tea’ was mostly bread and cakes in early days (roughly contingent with the Jurassic period, children), which displayed echoes of the post-wartime-rationing celebratory embrace of newly available supplies of sugar. In later years (still before you were born, child) this advanced to things like savoury andwiches and pigs-in-blankets type things, reflecting the outbreak of the savoury snacking that had heralded the phenomenon of the Tupperware Party.
Mmm jam butty after school. I invented the triple jam butty. Make one – two slices of white bread, marge, jam. Then marge on one side of finished butty, more jam, then slap on third slice of bread. Lush.
Breakfast – black pudding on toast
Dinner – slop from school, except Friday when it was fish & chips. Meat & two veg at weekends
Tea – generally sloppy – mash & sausage or pie or bacon & onion in a cheesy milk sauce with boiled potatoes
Supper – buttered crackers
Still my favourite foods today, especially slop
I had the same supper (ryvitas though with a glass of milk) and similar other meals, must be a northern thing, thankfully not the same breakfast
Big fan here. Love turkey, I do the cooking and it is always juicy and delicious (top tip – Delia knows the way). It’s always accompanied by roasties, several stuffings, steamed sprouts and chestnuts, roast parsnips, cranberry sauce, pigs in blankets. Followed by Christmas pud and custard or ice cream (both is allowed).
Tea is left overs, cheese, pate, a large pork or game pie from the butcher, mince pies, After Eights.
Heaven
Roasties oh yes. The only part of the whole shebang that is entrusted entirely to me.
Goose fat is good, beef dripping is the best.
We go goose here. Top tip, par boil, drain, put the lid on the pan and shake vigorously. Extra crunchy!
Yeah I do the shaking bit, a very important stage.*
We do also have mash, mainly because of its crucial role in the Boxing Day fry-up.
*Yes we bloody are still talking about potatoes.
..you people
Oh yes Sunday bubble is very important.
Correct on the parboiling and shaking. I make sure I have spare duck fat around at Christmas. That works well too.
Between the parboil and the shake, let them steam in the colander, over the hot pan they were parboiled in. A surprisingly essential step.
Having said, this year, at long last and not for want of trying, no kids around on the day, so a sea food platter is taking the place: oysters, scallops, mussels, crevettes, crab and lobster. O yes!!
My roast potato method. Par boil. Chuck them into a colander – sprinkle with flour. Shake Shake Shake – rough them up. Try to get some of the meat juices on them when you put them in the oven. Sloo!
Eye-wateringly middle-class tip: or sprinkle with polenta.
Oh come on, surely there’s a poncier verb to use there than sprinkled.
Anoint?
“bless the potatoes with a polenta diffusion from your purifying ioniser (John Lewis, £152.95)”
THIS IS the Purifying Ioniser, Roots Controllah, lick-shot lick-shot! (cue filling-rattling bassline)
All of those steps but then sprinkle with some semolina. Even crunchier
Our Christmas Day dinner is strikingly similar to yours, Twang. Except leave out the chestnuts – never had them. Replace with Bread Sauce* – again, Delia is the one to follow for this – try her recipe, you will not be dissapointed. We always have Turkey and Ham – I normally don’t eat pork products for the rest of the year on ethical grounds, but I suspend my monatorium over the Christmas week. Maris Piper potatoes for the roasties – yes, parboil and shake. M&S do a nice seasoning for the parsnips.
Not a big pud fan – but a neighbour of ours usually drops in Christmas Eve with a big bowl of pineapple trifle that will last for three days at least – not traditional but bloody fantastic! Best part of the day of course is the sandwiches and tea around 8pm.
*I suspect this will start a row.
I usually glaze a gammon on Boxing Day morning for mid afternoon. Leeks in cheese sauce, fried spuds. Lush.
We also make a trifle – old school, cake bars, Kirsch, lots of cream and custard. Peach slices. Love it.
Chestnuts are well worth a try. Get a pack of cooked peeled ones and chuck them in the steamer with the sprouts.
I like to glaze the gammon too. I generally wait till everyone’s gone out for a walk though, it’s only polite.
I was already laughing at “chuck them in the steamer” but….me
Same here.
With a lot of Port to go with Stilton at about 7pm as I play a card game with an aged relative! (My Father)
I love port but it hates me. I come out in a rash, making me briefly slightly less beautiful.
Kweznuz is a good excuse to have a lot of old crap that simply wouldn’t be acceptable at other times of the year. Ginger Wine? It’s basically cough medicine. Still, can’t be too careful, there’s some nasty bugs going round….
Don’t particularly like a Roast Dinner. Mrs D loves ’em, so Christmas Dinner will be the full-on heaving plate of roast and boiled stuff left to go cold and then warmed up by the application of gravy.
The best bit about Christmas food is consuming my own body weight in cheese
Just learned today that Christmas is cancelled. Due to avian flu the only geese left in France cost approximately €4528 per kilo.
We had a goose once*. Three ounces of meat and seventeen hundredweight of fat.
(*steady)
A whole lot of Goosie
Looks like Rosie was the only woman at that gig.
I can’t think why, looks a very woman-friendly environment
You, sir, are a fool. Yes, a goose costs 45 times as much as turkey and contains half as much meat but every morsel of goose is a heavenly delight. And the gravy made from the giblets is the Very Nectar Of The Gods. And the fat caught in the tray placed beneath the goose (which lies on the unadorned bars) helps make the most perfect roast potatoes (and, by the way, none of this shaking in the pan nonsense with the potatoes. Steam to the point of collapse. Place on wire mesh to cool for at least thirty minutes. Heat goose fat till nearly smoking in the hot oven. Roll potatoes in the fat. Twenty five minutes later, roasties cooked to perfection)
Thank you, and on previous evidence I will take advice from you right after I’ve jammed toasting forks into my eyes. Merry Christmas!
Are you scurriously suggesting some of my Rights might be Wrongs? By the way, toasting forks in the eyes won’t get you a shag even in Hull
There’s not much meat on a shag anyway.
And a booby is almost all fat.
Ooh I don’t know probably both fish tasting though.
We often have a Christmas dinner between the 25th and New Year, if I’ve succeeded in buying a half-price or better turkey on Boxing Day. Take the breast off and roast as a crown, casserole the legs.
The 25th is my partner’s birthday, so I cook whatever she fancies. Don’t think we’ve ever had turkey on the day.
I like the ritual of it, but never truly enjoy it as a meal. Turkey is okay, but it’s a poor man’s chicken. The rest of it is a bit stodgy overall. And I detest sprouts with a vengeance.
(Fun fact I only just this minute learned and I’m shocked I didn’t know this until today. I have always thought it was either “brussell sprouts” or “brussel sprouts”, but I googled it as both were giving that wee passive-aggressive red line telling me I’ve mis-spelled it. Turns it it’s actually “brussels sprouts”. Plural on the brussels (or maybe a possessive noun without an apostrophe or some such pedantic thing – it’s got an “s” anyway). I did not know that.)
Seen it written on a festive menu before as Brusselled Sprouts.
I’ve seen porked pie once, but that wasn’t on a menu
Or cabbage of Brussels, as they say it in Brussels.
Nuts. Turkey done properly is far far better than chicken.
I think it should actually be ‘Brussels sprouts’ with a capital B as in sprouts a la Brussels, where farting is a national pastime. Like Wells cathedral. It’s not the cathedral of Wells, it’s the cathedral in Wells. Wells has an s, just like Brussels.
Reminds me of Jeffrey Archer.
“I went to Winchester School” (turned out to be a school in Winchester)
“I went to Cambridge University” (a sort of polytechnic thing near Cambridge)
“I asked the Lord and he said no, I said why Lord?” (I think I may be getting my 80s icons mixed up here)
‘Wellington’ rather than ‘Winchester’.
He passed off ‘…Wellington’ as ‘…Wellington College, Berkshire’, whereas in fact he actually went to Wellington School, in Wellington, Somerset.
I’m sure I’ve told this on here before… in my early 20s, pre-Mrs F, I went dancing with the best pal of the boss of the Cambridge Corn Exchange, and ended up doing a lot of good work for charity* on a committe with Mary Archer. She seemed really clever and I could not understand what she saw in multi-millionaire Jeffrey.
A few years later Mrs F and I were at the maternity unit of Addenbrookes hospital, where Mary was on the exec board. Jeffrey was dropped off by the prison minibus for weekend release and waiting to be taken home by his wife.
He was so slimy, he made me want to retch. The only other person who had that effect on me was Max Clifford, who I bumped into at a hotel breakfast buffet.
(*) but I don’t like to talk about it, mate
Ah, the eternal conflict between the Beauty and the Beast, the Fragrant and the Foul, the Krug and the Shepherds Pie, ect ect.
’twas ever thus.
Nothing wrong with Shepherds Pie though but.
I’d swap any turkey dinner I’ve yet had for a good shepherd’s pie with peas, carrots, sprouts, roasties and gravy.
It’s only the two of us so a turkey would last forever, or at least it would if we didn’t bin it. We sometimes have a turkey crown but it’s usually a Sutton Hoo chicken.
I watched a program about sprouts a few years ago (the winter evenings fly by in our house) and some sort of grafting jiggery pokery has been done to them to make them taste nicer. This might explain why I used to hate them but now like them.
We get 2 goes here, with Thanksgiving also. And, yes, mashed potatoes are served. On Christmas Day it’s generally eaten later in my experience., Around 4 or 5 As I am only generally cooking for 3 I normally just get a breast. Still enough leftover for a Boxing Day stir fry and/or a curry.
And its not necessarily a British tradition if one goes back a couple of hundred years. The turkey is indigenous to North America and was imported from here in Victorian times I believe to replace Goose or Duck
Yeah, it’s a big deal when the turkey is bought at the end of A Christmas Carol because it would have been goose for most people. The USA invented about three quarters of the traditional English Christmas, I think we’d still be making do with raw turnip otherwise.
Turkey – Yes
Sprouts – yes, you can’t have too many
Parsnips – yes
Stuffing – yes
Gravy – yes
Cranberry sauce -well obviously
P’s in B’s – strictly limited to one each. The beauty is in the scarcity.
Yorkshire pud – No, are you mad?
Bread Sauce – disqualified for not actually being food
Peas and carrots – a bit uninspired. Optional. Same serving dish.
Roasties – yes, and if anyone doesn’t eat theirs, take their presents back
Mash – does your granny still have teeth? If yes, then no
100%. Top of the class. No view on chestnuts?
In the sprouts, if you must. Otherwise, left untouched and unshelled in a bowl until March, then thrown away
You win!
Recreate the bread sauce experience by stirring some flour into some Copydex glue, cooking slowly for several hours, before sliding it gently into the bin.
Page 352 of the bible – Delia’s Complete Illustrated. Bread sauce will become the centrepiece of your festive meal!
Complete Illustrated what?…. sounds…. interesting…
My mother made magnificent bread sauce. Haven’t bothered since she passed on.
The proper Edwardian Christmas roast turkey dinner was perfected by my mother (and probably yours, too). I have fantasies of re-experiencing it at this time of year. as well as the Full Monty of perfectly roasted turkey and 8 vegetables including awesome roast potatoes, there would also be a hearty slice of boiled bacon, sausagement stuffing (HURRR), and then christmas pudding, cream, brandy butter, AND proper, old-school trifle. Plus cheese and chocs. And a thimble of wine as folks didn’t drink the large glasses of it in those days. (No pig in blanket. it’s an American thing, i suspect, as is having mash with it (see their Thanksgiving meal)). My father would always have a bowl of trifle for breakfast on Boxing Day. Christmas sandwiches, made with top quality black rye bread and the best bits of the leftovers make the various special Christmas sandwiches for sale in Gregs and Pret seem even more pitiful.
Fate has arranged to have a laugh with me by having a vegetarian going on vegan wife, along with 3 of the 4 children. I am allowed sausages and smoked salmon as a side. Dinner will be something vegetarian with some Brussels Sprouts. No roast potatoes unless I parboil some spuds and roast in olive oil, when mem will say how nice they are – but not make them herself. I would not have a Christmas dinner out unless in somewhere very special indeed, as I do not want to sully my pristine memory. But by Christ, i’d love to re-eat what mum would put out.
We always had chipolatas with our meal, going back as far as I remember which would be the 60s. They didn’t always have bacon wrapped around them though I think.
Its the other way round in our house. There’ll be about 10 of us sitting down and I’m the lone vegetarian so (quite rightly) can’t call the shots. I hope there’ll be sprouts because I love them so I’ll probably get myself a takeaway curry which you can drop any vegetable into. If I don’t get round to buying and freezing a takeaway, I’ll have a salad… with sprouts of course!
Oooh, sausage meat stuffing! That’s the ticket. My mum added chestnuts to the mix for hers, to go alongside the oatmeal stuffing we had every Sunday. My fathers favourite food, it was basically the same as the inside of a Scottish white pudding; oatmeal, fried onion and lots of fat, usually lard. Very farty indeed, the memory provoking a flatulent rumble internally.
12 in 12 days eh? Lightweight. Dawn French did as many in one day.
And where’s the asterisk resolution for the ‘progressive’ footnote gone, eh? Bloody amateur.
It’s in the tag. Bloody amateur.
Switches to large screen. Oh yeah, so it is.
What the OP giveth, the tags taketh away. (….eth)
I haven’t eaten turkey since my dad’s second wife died. She used to do it for the family gettogether at Christmas Day (being Swedish we of course celebrate proper on the Eve, which we do in our own smaller family units before all meeting up later during the holiday, these days usually on Boxing Day). Roast potatoes of course, but she’d always make an Italian Peperonata as a combined sauce/veggie side, which made the turkey much more tolerable.
On Christmas Eve I usually make a Swedish salmon dish (boiled with wine vinegar and spices), with boiled spuds on the side and asparagus, but I switch it up every few years.
I used to do tons of dishes, a mini julbord (the Christmas smörgåsbord), but as we’ve started to eat less and less I’ve scaled things back considerably.
Gravy. Use the baking tray the turkey was on, add water and cornflour and sizzle on a hob while stirring constantly. Anyone use stock?
Ideally make your own stock from the non edible parts of the turkey, neck etc. Results in a stunning gravy
Done that. The only problem is it smells revolting, or at least it did for me.
Christmas pie for me.
Layer a bowl with shortcrust pastry.
At the bottom mushrooms cooked in white wine.
Layer of blue cheese.
Layer of peppers sautéed
Layer of cheese
Layer of sliced aubergines cooked in red wine.
Layer of cheese
Repeat the peppers
Layer of cheese.
Repeat the aubergines
Cover with a layer of pastry make a hole in the centre, pour in homemade tomato sauce.
Cook in the oven 190 degrees.
Turn over the bowl when cooked so the bottom is now the top.
Sprouts grate, fry in a little oil add lemon juice chestnuts if wanted.
Potatoes roast in oil with chilli flakes parboiled first
Carrots ‘snips parboil roast with honey.
Stuffing and cranberry sauce.
Shred red cabbage glaze in the wok add sliced apples.
Gravy I’ve always hated, brown unpleasant stuff. “I thought my mother was a bad cook, but at least her gravy used to move about. Yours just sort of lies there and sets”. T Hancock.
Was going to try a Yorkshire Pudding Christmas wrap last week but the chef had changed the menu at the last minute, no nut roast so I had to have sprout pakora (interesting).
Sounds yummy
Controversial opinion – I think the frozen yorkshire puddings you can buy at the supermarket are better than anything you can make at home. Much, much quicker too.
Much better than anything I can make at home, certainly. (Faintest. Praise. Ever)
Yup, tis true.
My (Yorkshire) mother is turning in her grave
I think frozen ones are very poor, but it depends who is making them.
“You say that I’m an outlaw
You say that I’m a thief
Well here’s a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief”
… yebbut you nicked all that.
And anyway, red fkin cabbage?
Red and green Christmas colours.
Green – sprouts.
Red – my Christmas nose. Sorted!
Has to be roasties and mash – bubble and squeak and cold turkey and home made chips on boxing day often better than Christmas dinner itself. Cranberry/Red currant sauce would be abolished if I had my way but unfortunately the missus swears by it. Bread sauce great. Lots of gravy and a mountain of sprouts. the rest? Peas, carrots and parsnips – stuffing also a prerequisite.
And then a great christmas Pudding with brandy sauce. I am alone with this but have developed a great liking for it especially since the Heston Blumenthal one with the orange inside thatWaitrose did so well with.
You have to have some mash available on the day, so that some will be left over for the Boxing Day (Sprout) Bubble & Squeak. No roasties will be left over to use, if they’ve been done right.
We are not fans of turkey, so we alternate between shoulder of lamb (slow-roasted, with garlic and anchovies stuffed in) one year and brisket the next (even more slow-roasted, with loads of red wine, mushrooms, red onions, bayleaves, peppercorns).
Alongside that we have roast potatoes – par-boiled first, then given a good shake as above, drizzled with olive oil, rosemary, garlic, loads of salt and pepper – and roasted at 220 for about 20 minutes to get the crust then at 180 for 15 to 20 minutes to finish off.
Roast parsnips are always a favourite – parboiled, then drizzled with a honey glaze and in for the first half of the roast potatoes then watched carefully so they don’t shrivel too far. I’ve done carrots the same way – cut into big wedges.
Last year I roasted the Brussels Sprouts – cut in two, rolled in olive oil, loads of salt and pepper, smoked paprika. They were wolfed down.
Usual standard boiled veg – carrots, peas, sweetcorn if requested. Cabbage in the microwave.
Gravy – two kinds. One from the roasted juices, with a wee bit of Bisto original added. The other for the family traditionalists, who only really like Bisto original.
And, Yorkshires go with every kind of roast. (Or if they do not appear, Los Senoritas Malo are no feliz.). Nigella’s recipe works great for me . The oven must be so hot, you are in danger of losing your eyebrows when you open it, and the olive oil must be sizzling when you drop the batter in.
To follow, we have Trifle, which is made in my dear departed mother-in-law’s trifle dish. Swiss roll slices in the bottom, raspberry jelly, tinned peaches, cream. And the most wonderful Glasgow Italian Ice Cream, from Ginesi’s on Victoria Road, with the options of their raspberry sauce, snowballs, and flakes.
Then cheese – a good Scottish cheddar, some brie or camembert, and some wild honking blue cheese with oatcakes and slices of apple. Port, of course.
Don’t use olive oil for Yorkshires! The smoke point is lower than the temperature required for proper YP’s. You should use sunflower oil, or spray some of that avocado oil in the olive oil, in the same way that adding bit of olive oil to butter stops it from burning in the frypan.
I’m broadminded – yes I am – but having anything avocado-adjacent in a Christmas dinner is deeply offensive. Christmas is supposed to be fun, not work!
With you on the Trifle @el-hombre-malo but how the fuck can you have Scottish Cheddar my dear boy?
Next we will be seeing Cornish Haggis.
shoosh, you – Here’s one from the fine people at Mellis https://mellischeese.net/product/isle-of-mull-cheddar/
Our Cornish brethren may well have their own version of haggis – if you can have vegetarian haggis, and vegan haggis, then we are through the mirror.
I’ve had vegetarian haggis in Embra.
I worked on a project in Kent with a lovely, kind, very gullible lady. She was from Kent, her husband was from Edinburgh, and he had fun with the Brigadoon tales.
One day she came in to work, marched up to me, and said “He told me stories about haggis last night, but I know that you will tell me the truth.” I nodded, politely, and she explained that he had expected her to believe that haggis have one pair of legs shorter than the other, so they can stay stable running around the hills.
I smiled – “yes, of course, that’s true for the free range haggis, but the lowland haggis, and the farmed haggis, they live on the flat ground, so they have evolved …”.
She was triumphant – “I KNEW IT! WAIT TILL I TELL HIM!!”.
Some months later, there was a work event where family members were in attendance. He sought me out – “You, you bastard, you nearly killed me. She came home, wagging her finger in my face, ‘I SPOKE TO EL HOMBRE MALO AND HE’S FROM AN ISLAND UP THERE AND HE TOLD ME THAT IT’S ONLY THE FREE RANGE HAGGIS THAT ARE LIKE YOU SAID BUT THE LOWLAND HAGGIS AND THE FARMED HAGGIS HAVE GOT LEGS ALL THE SAME. YOU THINK I’M DAFT!’. I nearly died not laughing, and saying “yes, dear, you caught me, teasing you. Sorry love”.
Of course, what with the airbourne ‘Flu around this year, even the free-range Haggis have to be kept caged and indoors. Like the factory-farmed ones you buy in Aldi, their little legs barely develop, the poor wee mites.
Absolutely superbo! Send a whisky over to that man taking his haggis for a walk on a dog lead…
I’ve also had veggie Haggis in what Americans call “Edding Burrow”. It was mighty fine.
PS.@hubert-rawlinson is that you? Got a look of the young Rickman there… steer clear of cellos, dude
I shall steer clear of tall buildings too.
Yes tis I a few (OK quite a few) years ago I was sent it as a birthday treat.
Moosey where’s Bolamey?
Collier rather than Bolam, I would say.
I was hoping Paul Shane – to whose heights of glamour and elegance I can only aspire – would appear as a gif* making my presence on the blorum even more irritating than usual. Alas alack and rue, no.
*EDIT. Like this!
But it would have been ridiculous to say colliery!
Not in Cumbria, it would seem.
…the window to watch…
“Or the window to wash” as we used to sing.
Arf!
But Mellis is in Suffolk. They have no authority.
We eat a late lunch around 2/3pm
Duck this year (not a cheap bird, but cheaper than goose which was £20k a kilo, smallest bird 4k), or nut roast for the veggies.
Sprouts
Carrots
Roasters
Home made stuffing (family recipe)
Then family recipe Christmas pudding with cream/ice cream much later in the day when there’s some room.
We enjoy the ceremony of it all on the day with a Christmas playlist and some fizz.
Ah yes, fizz. We have bucks fizz and a few sausage rolls at 12 on Christmas Day which is when guests aim to arrive. We’ll have 12 at the table this year which will be a lot of work but lovely after the past few years, C etc.
Having a hand in the cooking* means having to rein in the early boozing somewhat. It’s the end of innocence.
One of the many great things about Christmas is being able to drink heavily during the day without anybody batting an eyelid. We used to go to my sister-in-law’s for Christmas and she is very much a Get The Fuck Outta My Kitchen NOW type, so we were free to start necking the hard stuff pretty much as soon as we woke up. Those days are gone, though I do spend the following few days catching up.
*cookery! Slap my wrists.
I fondly remember my mother in law pouring me a rusty nail at 11am on Boxing Day. Lovely.
One of the many things that make me happy I’ve moved to Oz is the complete absence of Brussels sprouts on anybody’s yuletide radar. And I really only enjoyed the unfortunate bird, as my late mother-in-law used to call it, on Boxing Day. And roasties I can have any time of course.
Our Christmas lunch will feature my sis-in-law’s signature prawn and mango salad, a ham, my signature potato salad (with fresh tarragon if I can get it, otherwise dried is ok), various other salads, and quite possibly some snags. A Christmas pudding will probably be unenthusiastically toyed with. Beer will be taken. Bliss.
Snags? Best to be prepared for them, there are always some.
Sossidges, dear boy.
Aren’t you in Oz? Assumed they would be “sausagesies”
Snagsies, maybe.
Whither snaggohs?
Not really a fan. There will only be the 2 of us, The Light has a shift at the hospital in the middle of the day, and we’re Veggie so it isn’t going to be a traditional feast. Probably just something like a ready made mushroom and chestnut Wellington that can be put in the oven with the veg.
I’m the better cook but roast potatoes are her department, and she loves sprouts while I’ll try the traditional two in the hope they’ve become pleasant in the last 12 months (I’ll keep trying despite over 50 years experience telling me they haven’t).
To be honest I prefer the sprawling out and grazing all day approach, though her work well out a dent in that. I don’t enjoy the sense of house arrest that comes with Christmas and the big meal was always the worst part of that.
Love a bit of turkey but a major sticking point in my family has always been the continued absence of Yorkshire pudding from the menu on Christmas Day. My Mum just simply wouldn’t have it that Yorkie Pud is a valid, some say essential, part of the traditional Christmas dinner and as I became an older and slightly more confrontational teenager I started saying “No Yorkshires then?” every year, admittedly with a slightly ironic tinge (as there were piles and piles of other trimmings) but still with a slight hint of genuine incredulity. I repeated this every single year, it becoming part of the family Christmas dinner ritual- (yes, I am a natural comic) until one day when I was in my late twenties and asked the question again, she, with a dramatic flourish, got some out of the oven, to mass hilarity. However, at the meal’s conclusion, she leaned over to my sister and said “See? Told you they wouldn’t go.” They were bloody delicious. Not repeated since though…
Yorkshire’s have no place on a Christmas dinner plate. As I grew up in a house with 2 strong Yorkshire women I would never ever contemplate asking for it. Shudders ….
I know, right? Why not bung a pasty on there as well? Or a pork pie?
My lovely and kind-hearted nephew did Christmas lunch for the family a couple of weeks ago, while we were all in the same country. I had notes.
1. Yorkshires. No! And why two batches?
2. Sprouts – more than one each would be nice
3. Broccoli – no place on the Christmas table. No place near food, to be honest.
4. Mysterious orange-glowing pan back left – think it might have been carrot mash?. Never made it to my end, anyway.
5. Spuds and parsnips – glorious.
6. Gravy. For one, presumably?
7. Turkey (not pictured) was spot on and vegan alternative looked like Swiss Roll. (One of the vegans renounced the faith (temporarily) and had turkey, which gave the other vegan the best Christmas present you can ever get, a year’s worth of moral superiority over your partner.)
Overall – 90% of everything is golden brown carbs and that’s good, but criminal shortage of edible vegetation and presence of par-baked inflatable pillows cost him a point. 7.5/10.
Are those parsnips or chips?
Parschips
“Never made it to my end” – try some Christmas pud, mate
Not a Frey Bentos in sight!
I’m sure there must be a Christmas Dinner FB pie. The ghost of a turkey, a sprout and a potato that was probably brought over by Polo himself. They do Vegan Balti pie -more weird orange stuff – presumably for the “Holloween” market, so anything is possible.
‘The ghost of a turkey and a suspicion of pigs in blankets’ I can see that on a gastro pub menu.
A rumour of gravy… an insinuation of sprouts… an ectoplasm of bread sauce
a reverie of chestnuts… a la recherché du stuffage sage et onionoise
a recrudescence of cranberry
A soupçon of soup, son.
That could have come out of that rather splendid BBC series ‘Posh Nosh’ by Arabella Weir, and (I think) Jon Canter. As could some of Chiz’s in this thread. ‘Embarrass the onions…’
Not Frey Bentos but surely it’s all you need.
Banned by FIFA, I expect.
Even a stopped clock etc
Have a hamper to help out with the spread Moose.
Just what I need, more poultry.
Whaddaya mean, “What poultry?”
Yes please. Pile it on.
We all like turkey. We’ve had posh ones and we’ve had frozen ones. None of us have noticed any difference in flavour or quality. Especially as the meat is only a small pair of the meal.
Sprouts I love. Chestnut stuffing I love. Cranberry sauce i love. Roast parsnips, adored.
And. YORKSHIRE ******* PUDDING. Our daughter loves them so I make a bloody huge massive one each, which needs its own side plate, with bits cut off to join the main ensemble as required. Get. In.
Dessert is Trifle. With custard you can stand the spoon in and goes ‘schlupp’ when you scoop it out.
Boxing Day morning we’ll be having our new favourite breakfast of toasted muffins topped with poached egg and Haggis. *starts making gurgling noises* *faints*
Hurrah! Life-threatening gluttony! You da man!
Aw shucks. One tries.
*faints*? *farts* more like it…….
Christmas Eve food now – a subject in its own right – we always have smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, brown bread and a squirt of lemon juice for a late breakfast *drools*
Lancashire hotpot
There is no such thing as Christmas Eve food, in Anglophone countries anyway. And stop trying to make “Christmas Eve boxes” a thing. Jesus says: knock it off, buster!
So you’re saying you fast on Christmas Eve in order to get the most out of the main event? 😯
Yes, except for the Ex-Lax obviously. Make way!
Trifle, bleuurrrggghhh. The only decent bit is the custard.
Christmas pudding sliced then fried on both sides dollop of custard or ice cream, (cream if you must).
Christmas breakfast, porridge with mincemeat stirred in (you could try grated sprouts for that extra Christmas hit, though not with the mincemeat a step too far methinks).
My Polish SiL has done this a couple of times on Christmas Eve.
1. Pierniki (Polish Gingerbread)
2. Barszcz Czerwone z Uszkami (Red borscht with mushroom dumplings)
3. Kapusta z Groszek (Cabbage with Split Peas)
4. Jarzynowa Sałatka (Vegetable Salad)
5. Karp (Carp: Fried or Baked in Aspic)
6. Pierogi z grzybami i kapustą (Mushroom and Cabbage Pierogi)
7. Gołąbki (Rice Stuffed Cabbage Rolls)
8. Challah (Plaited Jewish bread)
9. Sernik (Polish Cheesecake)
10. Kutia (Wheat-flower and Honey Dessert)
11. Makowiec (Poppy Seed Cake)
12. Kompot (Smoked Fruit Cordial)
Trifle is a combination of all the desert ingredients I most despise (and in the case of the jelly won’t eat). If there’s sherry included then add the worst drink known to man to the list of abominations.
How do you feel about sand?
I’d prefer it to trifle. Once an editor …
🙏
I usually do Christmas lunch for my wife’s family here in Singapore – there will be a minimum of 14 and could be up to 25 as we usually also have some friends as well. Always a very traditional Turkey (I get the biggest I can find – approx 9-10kg) with all the trimmings and as my wife is vegetarian a couple of veggie mains. Food on table at 2-3pm and gradually gets eaten through the day and into the evening, with top ups of soups, breads etc later in the day. And lots of wine.
Due to us being in the UK this year, we did early on this past Saturday…..
– Turkey (9kg) – separate into crown and legs, debone the legs and stuff and roll them up (basically so it cooks a lot quicker).
– a pork, apricot, pistachio stuffing roll wrapped with sage
– a salmon Wellington (two whole sides of salmon with a cucumber, dill, Dijon centre and puff pastry base) (a Nigel Slater recipe)
– a mushroom, spinach, ricotta puff pastry pie as the veggie main (which always gets demolished by the non veggie eaters)
– roast potatoes (parboiled and then roasted in butter and olive oil so vegetarian friendly)
– roast carrots and parsnips (with maple and sherry dressing)
– julienned carrots steamed in a little butter
– sprouts (par boiled for a couple of minutes only and then roasted with pistachios and a dash of orange and then sprinkled with pomegranate seeds)
I usually also add a potato / butternut gratin and have a decent piece of fillet of beef that I can add quickly if we need more food ( if not it’s done on Boxing Day)
This greeted us a few years back in Crete for Christmas.
Sprout salad.
Is that a Poinsettia garni at the right, there?
I think it was red pepper in the style of Poinsettia garni or as it was originally known ascuetlaxochitl as I found out this week.
Ascuetlaxochitl – three more courses from them later
*cough*Ascuetlaxochitl!*cough*
– Eric Morecambe
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arguments
My relatives
naked
boil both of
the dog’s dinner
invective
excuse for a walk to the pub
sex
…..you’ve been peeking in the Teacher’s Book.
Thanks to Covid I have lost my sense of taste and smell so you could serve up some warmed up plasticine and daffodils on Christmas Day and I wouldn’t know the difference.
That works for me.
Let me know what time you’d like to rock up.
PS the post-prandial Port will be Quink – you ok with that?
I became the guy that cooked the turkey for Thanksgiving during my last few years in the states so I’m actually rather good at it now. Sprouts must always be roasted, never boiled. I discovered this way too late in life. I do bread sauce from scratch as well which is a revelation.
Yorkshires go with beef, not turkey.
Yorkshire pudding goes with any roast dinner featuring gravy. Without Yorkshire pudding, the gravy arrives alone and is just there. With Yorkshire pudding, the gravy has a best mate to hang out with. In no time they’re the life and soul of the party, body popping, doing robot dances and so on.
Yes, beef only. However Yorkshire tradition was that it was served first alone (with gravy) as an “appetiser” *
* To fill you up so you didn’t need so much meat
Our Ukrainian visitor will be contributing fare to the table. I suspect it will involve beetroot and dumplings. Possibly in the same dish. There is a war on, so i must be charitable and grateful for what I am about to receive.
What is it with that lot over there* and beetroot? It’s like a freakin’ religion! I don’t mind the occasional pickled ‘troot, but that’s the limit. They’ll put one in everything, possibly even your bath, if you don’t stop ’em.
(*gestures vaguely in the direction of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia)
They call it “beet” here which confused me a lot when I first heard it described as such. Can’t stand the stuff myself
Beetroot may be the only common vegetable which is even more revolting than sprouts.
It’s both uneatable and inedible. Both at the same time. There are only four foods I can’t possibly bring myself to eat: beetroot, olives, peanut butter, marmite. Sprouts are fine though.
Can’t eat olives and you got Italian citizenship?
I have five olive trees in the garden. Wasted on me. (My neighbour harvests them for oil and gives me a bottle.) I think someone here once described olives as “the devil’s grapes”. I subsequently stole the phrase and have used it as if it were my own ever since.
The devil’s grapes are haemmorhoids, surely
…ore rather, sorely
Beetroots…yum!
Boiled and served with butter, or in a salad with feta cheese etc. Pickled goes with most meat and potato dishes, or in a beetroot salad (mayo version) which in turn goes with most cold meat.
And Biff a’la Lindström: pickled beetroot, pickled cucumber and capers (all finely diced) mixed into the ground beef and made into patties… *starts salivating*
Also; beetroot crisps! *chef’s kiss*
Yes.
Beetroot crisps are yummy.
Proper genuine Scouse is supposed to be served with beetroot.
Australians have it in burgers, I’m led to believe.
I like it in a mixed salad and it goes very nicely with corned beef, horseradish sauce and coleslaw in a sarnie.
Beet Surrender…
I Am The Beet
Beets Don’t Fail Me Now
Moosey ‘stole’ mine .
I’ll beetroot to you.
Beets and Yeats are on your side….
@hubert_rawlinson Beet’n To The Punch
Beetroot To Your School
Beetroot has always been an integral part of the Festering Season as the Victorians knew.
God put these things (mostly) underground for a reason.
I love olives, PB ok but not bothered, Marmite yeah ok. Beetroot tastes ok actually but I still don’t like it regardless.
I used to dislike olives and always thought if you ate beetles that’s what they’d taste like. Love ’em now though.
Olives.
A friend brought some round once he’d been given them by a friend who didn’t like olives but had given these to try and absolutely loved them.
We popped one in the mouth and tasted.”What do you think?”
The saltiness had gone to be replaced by the taste of lavender.
The four of us tried to think of ways to say how unpleasant they were without being rude until one of us said something on the lines of “I’m not keen” and we all then said they weren’t for us.
“That’s ok” said our friend “we didn’t like them either”
Vile.
It is the time of year when all the neighbours have us round to taste last year’s olives – the local variety is the much prized luque. Interesting: bitter and slimy with a hint of fox poo.
When they come round ours they get supermarket Greek de-stoned from a jar. My neighbours call me ” Roi des olives”. I get the pick of this year’s virgins. Probably time to leave and go check Gary’s Poll – yes, Josh Rouse still looking good
“I love yer English beetles” – Buddy Holly.
And there was me thinking of inviting you to dinner next time you’re in Murwillumbah. My signature fricassee of beetroot and olives with a Marmite and peanut butter jus is no longer on offer.
After a decade of beige LOFFLEX carb/protien based diet (based around white rice and chicken), a little pickled beetroot is like a wonderful taste explosion giong off in my head. I have to watch it, though, ‘cos it turns my pee pink.
It does that to everybody.
I found that out when…. oh never mind
Yule log, anyone?
To eat? Are you out of your mind?
I mean the chocolate Swiss roll with a sprinkling of icing sugar and decorated with a sprig of holly. I can’t eat Christmas pud or cake ‘cos of the raisins.
Not the, er, Boxing day, um, motion.
And a plastic robin, don’t forget the plastic robin.
You shit plastic robins?
Only as roughage.
Nice
Does the beak not lodge in yer sphincter, negating the “roughage” effect?
How poetic. It’s like “Does your chewing gum lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight?” with added anus (though opinions on Lonnie Donegan vary)
Why, Moose – you’ve changed your avatar…
It’s all the rage.
…..I missed the opportunity to say “bonus anus” there, which should always be fully employed (er…)
Reminded of a friend’s description (which I think he stole somewhere) of Nadine Dorries: “Thick as a Boxing Day turd.”
Could also be applied to a few other UK political midgets.
The simile was (briefly) on her Wiki page.
Thanks for the second hamper guys, I’m ‘kin starving
(I said as if most of the posts above aren’t mine)
Sorry I’m late to the Christmas party, but I’ve been on paella and tapas on the Costa Blanca. Not sure there’s much to add.
I’m the chef and have been for years and I love it for being an extended opportunity to cook for others. My dad provides the house, I send five days of menus to my brother and he brings the wine to match.
I’ll follow tradition if it suits. Much prefer chicken to turkey, but it will get all you’d expect to go with it. Somebody up there said only one pig in blanket each. Are you mad? I just put in my Christmas order to the market yesterday – three trays for seven of us. The family never went much on Christmas pudding, so that was dropped while I was still a teenager. I only have maybe three desserts in my repertoire, but the family won’t hear of anything else. Panettone bread and butter pudding is too heavy for post-roast, so it will be baked cheesecake ( I know, I know, so much lighter!)
Soups are a big thing for me. This morning, I have just prepared the cream of Jerusalem Artichoke soup and frozen it. To the consternation of many on here, there will also be beetroot and dill soup on one of the days.
Boxing Day we are booked in a country pub for Uncle David’s day off. We all turn vegetarian on the 27th!