Old Time Cheer

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 232, 20 December 1927, Page 13

Old Time Cheer

EPICURE'S FEAS Story of Xmas Foods MINCE PIE CONTROVERSY What would Christmas be without eating and drinking? asks “The Diner Out.” Honestly, now, however superior you may be, in the ordinary way, to carnal and material things, don’t you look forward to your Christmas fare? If you don’t, you have my sympathy, but not my respect. Of course, you may be a confirmed dyspeptic to whom the mere mention of mince pies, goose and sage and onion, turkey and sausages is anathema. If so, you had better read no further. Or you may be a food faddist or vegetarian. Even so, I hope you will let yourself go a bit on Christmas Day and have an extra nut or two, and run riot with the brussels sprouts. To eat well and drink well at Christmas is one of the wisest follies of mankind. I notice that even those “superior” folk, the curmudgeons and cynics, who vote Christmas a nuisance or a bore, eat richer food than usual when turkey week comes round. Everybody does himself extra well, and quite right, too! The celebration of a feast about this time is older than Christianity itself, and although the Puritans in the 17th century tried to stop the observance of Christmas, the common sense of the people was too strong for them. For Christmas meets a need of human nature. It is good for us all to relax at times and play the fool.

As Christmas approaches I like to roam about* and look at the shops and big stores in all their festal array and panoply. What host of good things are displayed! How attractive are the windows of the provision merchants with their frilled hams, lus-cious-looking tongues, brawn, and all sorts, of spiced delicacies. Even butchers’ shops, not always so pleasing to the eye, look gay with wonderful rosy joints bedecked with rosettes. Most picturesque of all are the grocers’ and fruiterers’ shops with their vai'i-col-oured array of pineapples, oranges, pears, almonds and raisins. Brazil nuts, French plums, ginger in attractive jars, candied, crystallised and preserved fruits. And the confectioners, with their nice warm smell, how delicious look the Christmas cakes and candies and sAveets and the mince pies! Christmas Pie Controversy Strange to think that there was a time in England when the Christmas mince pie was the subject of fierce religious controversy. The Puritans regarded the making and eating of these delicacies as a superstitious observance of Popery. Bunyan, when in prison, refused to eat them lest he should “injure” his morals thereby.

The reason was that the ingredients of the mince pie, especiallj' the spices, were supposed to have reference to the offerings of the Wise Men. The pastry cover or case was oblong in shape to represent the creche or manger in which our Saviour was placed. In the 17th century mince pies were made of neats’ tongues, chicken, eggs, sugar, currants, and lemon and orange peel, with various spices, which does not differ much from modern recipes, except for the omission of brandy. Almost all Christmas fare, including the mince pie, is of very ancient origin, although we no longer eat cranes, swans, peacocks stuffed with spices, and herons, which were formerly standard dishes at great houses at Christmas. Of a monk Chaucer wrote: “A fat swan he loved the best of any roast.” Nor would the modern cook know what to make of it if you ordered a disli of dillegrout, a favourite delicacy in the time of Henry 11., compounded of almonds, milk, the brawn of capons, sugar, and spices, chicken parboiled and chopped. But the boar’s head, the ancient ceremonial dish at the Christmas feast, probably as old as the Saxons, as a Christmas dish still survives. At Queen’s College, Oxford, every Christmas Day a dinner is held at which i choristers sing old carols, and a boar’s head, crowned with bay and rosemary, is brought in in stately procession. The carol runs: “The boar’s head in hand bear I, Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary; And I pray you, my masters, be merry.” The boar’s head, although it may not figure in many private houses, is still served at banquets, and may be seen with lemon in his mouth at restaurants. Brawn is probably as old as the boar’s head. Geese, capons, pheasants drenched with ambergris, and pies of carps’ tongues, helped to furnish the table in bygone Christmases. And there was one indispensable dish now obsolete known as “furmenty,” or “frumenty,”, made of hulled wheat, boiled in milk and seasoned. Variety Of Olden Times

Our ancestors were great trenchermen, and seem to have loved variety as well as plenty. They did not need cocktails to whet their appetities. A duke’s Christmas dinner in the 16tli century contained in the menu: oysters (the cost of 200 was 4d), salt sturgeon, swans, peacocks, herons, dogfish, and conger. The wines were Gascony, Malvoisy, Rhenish, and Ossey, in addition to great quantities of ale. As an example of a * moderate Christmas dinner in the 17tli century, take the following: “The first course should consist of 16 full dishes; that is, dishes of meat that are of substance, and not empty, or for show as thus, for example: first, a ehield of brawn, with mustard; secondly, a boyl’d capon; thirdly, a boyl’d piece of beef; fourthly, a chine of beef, rosted; fifthly, a neat’s tongue, rosted; sixthly, a pig, rosted; seventhly, chewets, baked; eighthly, a goose, rosted; ninthly, a swan, rosted; tenthly, a turkey, rosted; the eleventh a haunch of venison; the 12th, a pasty of venison; the 13th, a kid, with a pudding in the belly; tlie 14th, an olive-pye; the 15th, a couple of capons; the 16th, a custard, or dowsets. Now, to these full dishes may be added sallets, fricassees, quelque clioses, and devised paste, as many dishes more, which make the full service no less than two and thirty in one mess, which is as much as can conveniently stand on one table in one mess. And after this manner you may proportion both your second and third courses, holding fulness on one half of the dishes and show in the other; which will be both frugal in the splendour, contentment to the guest, and much pleasure and delight to the beholder.” If this was a frugal, friendly dinner, what must a formal banquet have been? Turkey as a Christmas dish is a comparatively modern innovation. The year 1520 is supposed to be that which is commemorated in the old rhyme: “Turkeys, carp, hops and beer Came into England all in one year.” Goose, described as a foolish bird because “it is too much for one and not enough for two,” is a much more ancient dish for Christmas, although it is now’ linked with Michaelmas, Stuffed with sage and onion and served with apple sauce it is food for the gods. There are some birds born to be eaten, but I am not persuaded that the turkey is one of them. In flavour and succulence it cannot compare with the goose. When you come to analyse it, the best thing about turkey is not the bird itself but its accompaniments. With chestnut and sausage meat stuffing, cranberry sauce (bread sauce is too insipid) and York ham, slices off the breast of a young turkey taste delicious. But the method de luxe is to use truffles and foie gras for the stuffing,

! and a sauce made from turkey stock, ' butter and a flavouring of chutney. If you have once eaten turkey stuffed with truffles you will never want to have it any other way. There is nothi ing like the penetrating fragrance of j the truffle —the real, rich, black tuber I of Perigord. As preliminaries, a few oysters, a | clear amber turtle soup or light coni somme are excellent, with a glass of Madiera or sherry wine. 'With the turkey itself any good white wine goes. Champagne, the wine of sentiment, is i best, a clever vintage with a hint of I frivolity in it. or a sparkling wine of some sort. And with the plum pudding, rich and spiced and with plenty of fruit and almonds, must be brandy butter. Of course, the pudding should be well soused with brandy—and good brandy too—and fired. One must have the blue flame, else one misses the true Christmas spirit. Then a mince pie, which should be so delicate and piquant that it should melt in the mouth. How delicious mincemeat can be!

One toys with the dessert, which should be a. part of every Christmas dinner. A slice of pineapple and a few almonds and raisins are enough for me. I leave the crystallised fruits, the ginger, the oranges and the apples and .the chocolates to the youngsters, without whom no Christmas party is complete. The wassail bowl is one of the oldest acompaniments of Christmas. So far back as the third century Britons had their wassail bowl made of ale, sugar, toast, and roasted crab-apple hissing in the bowl, to which in later times nutmeg was added. In the middle ages, at royal banquets, the wassail bowl was introduced with great ceremony. A procession of servants, carvers, ushers, and butlers was formed and the wassail, borne aloft, was brought in. The gentlemen of the chapel stood at one end of the hall, and when the steward came in with the wassail he cried out, “Wassail, wassail, wassail.” to which they answered with a good wassail song or carol. There are many old wassail songs still existing as well as the more modern ones. In Devonshire, the old custom still survives to wassail the apple and pear trees in order that they may bear better. There is- a century old formula of Colonel Peter Hawker for the making of wassail —“One of sour, two of sweet, four of strong, eight of weak.” This means one measure of lemon-juice, two of sugar, four of spirit, and eight of boiling water. . Punch is the modern equivalent of wassail and the loving cup a survival of the wassail bowl.