Christmas Meal; This morning I was making my vegetarian stuffing, gravy and red cabbage for the meal on the day. It will all go into the freezer, alongside the chicken. Turkey is not eaten. The thought escaped this is what I would call now a 'peasant' meal.
All the bits and bobs that go with the bird. Do people make onion sauce and bread sauce I wonder? Skewering the onion with cloves to flavour the milk. Well I haven't, no one would eat such things in this household. Xmas pudding, Xmas cake is off the menu as well, as is mince pies though we got half dozen for the brandy butter and cream. The young just simply turn their noses up at it.
I turned to Margery Hartley's compendium of 'Food in England' but she makes no specific mention of Christmas and doesn't like turkey anyway.
We bought goose fat and brandy butter plus 'pigs in blankets' yesterday, small trimmings but not the tiny sausages I remember as a child. Do people put rashers of bacon across the bird when cooking, a charred deliciousness. Our poor chicken gets a lemon stuffed up its backside.
The grown-up children will eat the carbohydrates such as potatoes and Yorkshire puddings but will turn their noses up at roasted parsnips and sprouts. I still like Xmas pudding with cream and brandy sauce but it will be too much anyway. Perhaps next week an apple crumble, still the best thing since sliced bread.....
They say that the first turkey in England was eaten by Henry V111 in the 16th century. I shall never forgive that king for killing a swan, one of a pair that swam upon his lake, just to give pain to the other swan. The turkey is on the whole an ugly bird with that great red wattle. As a child on holiday in Wales I would bring the turkeys in, in the evening, getting them out of the tree in which they were roosting.
Give me pigs in blankets over turkey every time - turkey is not to my liking and unless you are feeding an army you are eating the wretched stuff for ever. Many is the time I have sliced up what is left and frozen it only eventually to defrost it and give it to the farm dogs.
ReplyDeleteOne Xmas my first Mother-in-law came over to England and I cooked a turkey. So it went the rounds turkey meat goes till I got sick of it. Threw it into the dustbin. Horror of horrors, Lotta pulled it out, I had forgotten to boil the bones into stock for soup making!
DeleteWe do lay strips of bacon across wild turkey...it is too dry otherwise. It also lends a wonderful smokey flavor to the meat. The picture you describe of you gathering the turkeys from their trees. Here, that is what hunters call 'putting the turkeys to bed'. A patient hunter watches. Sometimes for days. If he is lucky enough to figure the roost, he just stays there until dark. Then he comes home knowing the turkeys will stay put until first light.
ReplyDeleteI once ate Swan, but it was a young one which had died colliding with a pylon so I felt no guil†. (I don't know how that cross appeared, but I like it!)
ReplyDeleteWell as we both know the swans belong to the Crown, or at least the residing monarch. You didn't say whether it was tasty or not. Intrigued by that cross, christianity just took over my blog...
DeleteIt tasted of river. You know the not unpleasant smell healthy rivers give off in a hot summer? Some people did not like it but I did. There is a true story of a man who shot an eagle. When in court he said he shot it by accident, confusing it for an unprotected bird. The judge asked him what he did with it and the man replied that he ate it. "What did it taste like?" the judge asked. "A bit like swan". Guilty.
DeleteWhen I was a child, my grandfather caught a lot of fish such as salmon and trout. But once someone caught pike which we had to eat and that was rather horrible tasting, somehow I think swan would taste like that. Most wild birds don't have much meat on them anyway.
DeleteWell I suppose all turkeys end up on a dinner plate Debby. I thought at first eating a turkey on Xmas day came from America but apparently not so. Though a goose on the day was often more preferred.
ReplyDeleteOur tradition is ham. We have the specter of the never ending turkey still haunting us from last month!
DeleteI've never liked turkey. Being of immigrant stock we had our own traditions, 12 non-meat dishes on Christmas Eve and a simple dinner on the day. I used to make boeuf bourguinon in advance. This year with just two of us it will be baked salmon parcels with new potatoes, petit pois and mange tout followed by Bara Brith with nuts in. Had a wonderful vegan Christmas dinner last year made by Edible Mach after we sang carols for them.
ReplyDeleteThe salmon meal sounds nice Ruta, Christmas meals are often too heavy. There always used to be such a fuss about being vegetarian, now it blends into family meals and there is an upward curve of vegan/vegetarianism.
DeleteSince we had turkey just last month here in the states, no one can face another one. We grew up on the border with Mexico, so, we have red chile and pork stew, and tamales for Christmas dinner.
ReplyDeleteAll sounds exotic Jan, though I don't know what tamales are. I can't imagine people in hot countries liking our stodgy Xmas pudding and heavy cake full of fruit then covered in marzipan and icing.
ReplyDelete