CHRISTMAS FEASTS OF THE PAST.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 164, 23 December 1926, Page 3

CHRISTMAS FEASTS OF THE PAST.

I ' | Whatever our forefathers of past ccnj | turies missed, they certainly had no I lack of tempting Christmas fare, or ap- \ petite for it. Take, for example, the dinner to which Pepys sat down on Christmas ? / Day, 1635, which consisted of “a dish l | of marrow bones, a leg of mutton, and a loin of veal; three pullets and a - 1 dozen larks, all in a great dish. Also 5 1 a great tart, a neat’s tongue, a dish I of anchovies and prawns, and cheese.” • And what hungry Briton of to-day ! would not hail a Christmas pie like i that provided for his guests in 1770 jby a SSir Henry Grey? “It 'was,” we ; i read, “nine feet in circumference, j weighed 1651 b., and contained among ’ 1 other ingredients four geese, two turkeys, two rabbits, four wild duck, two snipe, seven black birds, and half a dozen pigeons.” This leviathan pie, we are told, ‘was brought round at constructed for the purpose. *’ table on a four : wheeler truck specially A few years earlier the Earl and . Countess of Northumberland gave a Christmas supper, the principal feature of which was a colossal cake crowned by the presentiment in sugar of a chaise and six horses, with coachman and footman, and Lady Yarmouth seated inside . i A Frenchman who visited England a ■ couple of centuries ago waxes eloquent I over his Christmas pie, which seems to have been in high favour as a Yuletide • delicacy. This delicious “ nostrum,’ 1 ! as he calls it, was a “most learned mixI ture of neats’ tongues, chicken, eggs, [ sugar, raisins, lemon and orange-peel, and various kinds of spicery. ’* And it had for rival, for many a generation, 1 plum broth, or plum porridge, a concoction of “beef or mutton, boiled w-ith broth and thickened with brown bread,” to which, when the boiling w r Us half completed, were added “raisins, • currants, prunes, cloves, mace, and ginger.” I ” '