“Time for a cool yule”

Fine Food with

Charles Campion

Food writer and critic

• It’s time to go left field rather than safety-first
• “Fashion or for keeps?”
• “New year and new possibilities”
• “What is in a name?”
• “The art of shopping”

Christmas lies across the calendar like a fallen tree and blocks out sensible behaviour from early November until Twelfth Night in January

Each Christian country has its own ‘special day’ when the celebrations peak. On St Nicholas’s Day (5th December) the Dutch hide presents around the house. On St Lucia’s Day (13th December) Hungarians celebrate the twelfth day before Christmas. Then there’s Christmas Eve, which for a number of European countries is the big day. As Britons, we save our most extravagant feasting for Christmas Day but keep Boxing Day in reserve for another bout of over-indulgence. On January 6th the French focus on Epiphany and the Three Kings. 

As the Christmas juggernaut rolls ever nearer we become more and more traditional. This is the time of year when sales of Brussels sprouts peak, and when it slowly dawns on turkeys that they may not be the ones celebrating. Our Christmas bill of fare is much the same as it has always been, in that there’s a grandstand piece of meat to overcook – be it turkey, goose, rib of beef or a ham. There are signs that a significant number of Britons are sufficiently influenced by the telly chefs to cook something other than turkey this Christmas, and in recent years there’s been a swing in favour of beef. But perhaps we should look at what the rest of Europe chooses as centrepiece of their Christmas revels?

Some years ago there was what would now be called a “pop-up” shop in the east of London. In the run up to Christmas, volunteers would take over the Finnish Cultural Centre and sell tinned foods and Finnish delicacies. There was iron-hard dried fish that tasted of bad breath and pyramids of reindeer pâté in tins. It may be childish, but the idea of eating Rudolph on toast seems a very good one. Venture to a German kitchen, or into Poland, and the Christmas Eve favourite could well be spiced carp. This being despite it being difficult to make anything magnificent out of carp, as the flesh is somewhere between muddy and flabby and there are plenty of small and irritating bones. In Britain we ate carp on meat-free Fridays in the Middle Ages – but under sufferance rather than because of any gastronomic potential. Meanwhile, the newly arrived Eastern Europeans, who even now are fishing for carp in Britain’s network of canals, are very puzzled when British anglers put the fish back rather than killing and eating them.

Continental cooks do have some strengths – rich fruit breads like Stollen from Germany and Pannetone from Italy are both becoming increasingly popular in the UK, but it would take a leap of faith to suggest that they are any match for a good Christmas cake. Or indeed the classic shortcrust mince pie (warm in an oven, cut a slit in the top and pop in a spoonful of brandy butter to melt into the hot mincemeat). In France more oysters are sold on Christmas Eve than at any other time of the year; Parisian families delight in having a few dozen in a basket to carry home in triumph. Contrastingly, you have to suspect that most Brits (outside those in the hotel and restaurant trade) would flinch at the prospect of opening their own oysters. Thereafter the French save themselves for the Galette des Rois – a very tolerable cake served on Twelfth Night.

Perhaps this is the year that we should respect our own Christmas traditions while trying something new? Stilton is at its magnificent best at yuletide, but what if we served it alongside some reindeer pâté and a boiled carp? Happy Christmas!