Weekly food shop today. Almost half-way into the month, and I don’t seem to have stocked up on any Christmas food yet. Now is the season to stockpile, surely?
That’s what the supermarkets want us to think, of course. I know that the shelves go higher for Christmas, but they seem to have got fatter at the same time. Do they add extra depth of shelves too?
I’m well able to bulk buy food, I know (I’ve alluded to this before). Part of me knows what is expected of me as a consumer. And yet – I hold off a bit longer.
Some of it is knowing that we’ll be with different family members at Christmas and Hogmanay. We don’t need to buy as much as if we were hosting. But has it gone the same way as the more general Christmas shopping? Am I simply not bovvered?
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Christmas Past
Back in the days when shops were shut for longer over Christmas, and fridges were smaller (or in fact just larders), it really was a stocking up. If there were any expectations of you as a hostess at other times of the year, multiply it up for Christmas.
My own childhood was not really in that era. But I can recall a certain look in my mother’s eye when calculating pints of milk and when shops would next be open.
Christmas is a juggling act on many fronts, particularly the food one. But what is Christmas food anyway?
On one hand, in the UK, it’s fairly simple. Turkey is the main deal for many (to which add cranberry sauce). Some potatoes (of your choice), possibly more starch in the form of bread sauce, and/or stuffing.
Some veg of your choice – the point at which to see how the room divides down the lines of pro- and anti-sprout. Possibly some other dalliances like little sausages, wrapped rolls of bacon, or other savouries to stand against the blander turkey meat.
Gravy. Your Sunday roast, really, with a bit more oomph (and a lot more work, naturally).
Some families are very strict in this regard: turkey it is. No discussions. Others chop and change. I remember a decision to have beef one year; salmon another. But mostly, turkey was the de facto choice.
There are other foods that are properly Christmassy, in that they only really come out at Christmas time. Cue: Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mince pies.
(Despite the turkey plus cranberry notion being fairly tried and tested, cranberries would often be relegated to Christmas-only, until Delia took the nation in hand.)
Others belong to other times of year, but are happy to put their party hats on and cosy up with Christmas. I’m thinking ham, trifle, and any number of other items that take on new identities with the addition of alcohol (rum butter, for example).
But every household has its own dos and don’ts for Christmas food. I’ve written before about the long-awaited arrival of the smoked salmon through the letterbox. Its counterpart, a little tub of clotted cream (from a relative in Cornwall), was also eagerly anticipated.
Christmas was also the timing for my discovery of white Stilton with apricot. No one else really took to it – I took it, and made sure it stayed that way.
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Christmas Present
Times change – and so do national tastes. Dan today was horrified at having missed out on being able to buy stollen, the German Christmas cake equivalent with marzipan through the middle.
Many Brits have also adopted panettone, the Italian Christmas cake version – still fruited, much lighter on the stomach after a big lunch. And, happily, lebkuchen, the Christmas gingerbread (often chocolate covered) that is also German (but Poland lays claim to as well).
Christmas is as Christmas does. I never actually managed to spend a Christmas abroad as an adult, but came close to it my second time round in Poland.
So I sampled the Polish classic of beetroot soup with little floating dumplings (‘uszka‘, or little ears), a Christmas Eve speciality. I’d happily keep that in – and I wouldn’t mind trying the multiple fish dishes.
Without necessarily trying, we seem to have ended up having fish fairly often on Christmas Eve. I wouldn’t say it’s a tradition, but I quite like it – something lighter on the palate before the onslaught of the following day.
But the supermarket would like you to know that there are other ‘have tos’ to add to your pre-Christmas shopping list. Nuts various, still in their shells, for some Nutcracker reenactments of your own.
Dried fruit – for all those Christmas baking items. But Christmas, too, lays claim to the exotic: the items just into the shops (going further back in time to real seasonality), like citrus fruits, better quality dates.
Nigella has led her own campaign for the pomegranate as a Christmassy food choice – and it works, both for colour and the exotic food aspect.
And there are other treats that seem more connected with Christmas. It isn’t for nothing that Edmund is drawn into the White Witch’s schemes by means of Turkish Delight – another food that lends itself to Christmassy eating, with its clouds of white icing sugar.
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Christmas Future
Where does a Christmas shopping list begin or end? Christmas is often the excuse for many indulgences: olives, good cooked meats, special nibbles.
In the past, we have had our choose a cheese mini-ritual, where each of us chose a particular cheese to have over Christmas time. (There was some sharing, of course. A chance to try the others, as well as to invest time in appreciating one’s own choice.)
This year, when the Christmas shop finally comes, it may be something different: a different type of ham each? There is something fun about allowing yourself that bit more of a ‘treat’ item, every once in a while.
I hope that Christmas, whatever form it takes, will continue to include leftovers. When post-Christmas torpor sets in, a spot of quick kitchen invention means that something great can often be borne from humble ingredients.
(I’m thinking of a certain kind of potato salad, with leftover roast veg, plus some pickles for a brilliant kick of acidity. I am happy to continue to dream in this direction, or any that a given fridge’s contents suggest.)
My main hope, whatever we’re eating, with whom, is that there will be time to linger. Plus time enough to have the kind of meals where you are happy to bring out much the same for lunch, day by day.
A family friend, now gone and much missed, coined the wonderful phrase ‘fruits de fridge’. That’s really what I have in mind. But not the easiest to quantify for that Christmas shop, whenever it comes.