Festive Fare: what are your Christmas "must haves"

[presta]

Stilton.

 

[KnittyNorah]

None of it, the majority of festive food is horrible.
I dont like it and wont be suffering it this year.

In complete agreement!
I've refused to suffer my way through it it for many years.
I usually get in extra cream cheese and smoked salmon for sandwiches on Christmas day, some lebkuechen and/or pfeffernuesse for a sweet treat and a bottle of Riesling or similar. Being almost vegetarian (I'm lightly pescatarian and an occasional ethical carnivore ...) and in addition detesting dried vine fruits in any shape or form, traditional UK xmas food leaves me with the most horrible meal imaginable - dry boiled sprouts and spuds, followed by a serving of brandy butter!

 

[slowmotion]

In complete agreement!
I've refused to suffer my way through it it for many years.
I usually get in extra cream cheese and smoked salmon for sandwiches on Christmas day, some lebkuechen and/or pfeffernuesse for a sweet treat and a bottle of Riesling or similar. Being almost vegetarian (I'm lightly pescatarian and an occasional ethical carnivore ...) and in addition detesting dried vine fruits in any shape or form, traditional UK xmas food leaves me with the most horrible meal imaginable - dry boiled sprouts and spuds, followed by a serving of brandy butter!

I'm guessing you are in the Bah Humbug camp then?

 

[PeteXXX]

I can lob a few over - I always buy a job lot of them. They make good marmalade too

I thought you were answering the Sprout question

 

[PeteXXX]

No turkey here this year but Pigs in Blankets are a necessity, home made, with the bacon being spread with cranberry sauce before wrapping the sausages.

 

[Jody]

Turkey, home made pigs in blankets and Christmas cake

 

[mikeIow]

In complete agreement!
I've refused to suffer my way through it it for many years.
I usually get in extra cream cheese and smoked salmon for sandwiches on Christmas day, some lebkuechen and/or pfeffernuesse for a sweet treat and a bottle of Riesling or similar. Being almost vegetarian (I'm lightly pescatarian and an occasional ethical carnivore ...) and in addition detesting dried vine fruits in any shape or form, traditional UK xmas food leaves me with the most horrible meal imaginable - dry boiled sprouts and spuds, followed by a serving of brandy butter!

Dried boiled sprouts?
Most people grumble about them being too mushy!
You need to try some new recipes…..try https://onedishkitchen.com/smashed-brussels-sprouts-recipe
& you don’t like roasted spuds?
Oh my days…..can’t get enough of them, lovely gravy and/or bread sauce….

We will be veggie this year, with our off-spring in charge of cooking….can’t wait. Son already tried out a mushroom pate mix on us last weekend - very tasty! Not sure what the main course will be - we had veg wellington last year…..delicious!

 

[Julia9054]

Used to love Christmas with all the trimmings when the kids were small. The blended traditions of my family and my husband's making new traditions of our own. (Al is a bloody good cook so that helps!)
Then went through a period of being sick of it all.
Now we have reinvented adult Christmas and I have regained my enthusiasm by realising that no food is set in stone and we can make and eat whatever the hell we like!
The only thing I personally insist on is sprouts. Though nowadays we are more likely to eat them in the form of sprout bhajis! (If you've never tried them, visit Bundobust in Leeds/Manchester)

 

[Reynard]

Now we have reinvented adult Christmas and I have regained my enthusiasm by realising that no food is set in stone and we can make and eat whatever the hell we like!
The only thing I personally insist on is sprouts. Though nowadays we are more likely to eat them in the form of sprout bhajis! (If you've never tried them, visit Bundobust in Leeds/Manchester)

This in spades!

I grew up with "must have this" and "must have that" and it was always dad's way (the Polish Christmas traditions) or no way... That lasted until dad passed away 14 years ago, and now we just have what we enjoy, blend the traditions and foods from our various heritages (a mix of British, Belgian, Polish & German) and forget about the stuff we never actually liked.

Sprout bhajis... I'll have to try that. I absolutely LOVE bhajis...

 

[KnittyNorah]

I'm guessing you are in the Bah Humbug camp then?

Not for anything other than the food, really.

But the food plays such a HUGE part in most people's Christmas celebrations here, and is really very restricted in its selection for most people, that Christmas becomes mainly a food-avoidance issue for me, which - given how much I love good food in general (too much!) - is so diametrically opposite to my natural character that I find the celebration hard to enjoy here in the UK.

Things have got improved over the years, of course, and I thoroughly enjoy many of the things that can be purchased and/or cooked in this season - but they are not 'the traditional Xmas dinner' to which I get invites - which I refuse.
I try to do it kindly, but too often I have to be blunt. I always hope that just saying I'm vegetarian will be enough, but often people just don't twig as to what that actually means. They say oh there'll be plenty of other things to eat besides the turkey - and when I ask 'such as?' they come up with 'everything except the turkey!' I then point out that 'vegetarian' means I would have a plate of dry boiled veggies on my plate ... Then I get 'well you could just enjoy the puddings' and then I have to get into the 'one of the few things I really dislike are dried vine fruits ...'

People DO think I'm a bah humbug person, because of this - given that I'm single, elderly and live alone, they think I simply MUST be either yearning to go to their horrible community hall and partake of overboiled sprouts with a group of people with whom I have nothing in common and play bingo after a a sing-song of 2nd and even 1st WW songs OR I am a sour, anti-social old misery-guts.

The crass commercialism surrounding the entire thing also grates, and I'm not Christian (other than vaguely culturally) either. But I ignore most of the latter two issues and take it for what it is, an ancient celebration of the 'turning' of the year 'taken over' and changed as beliefs and cultures changed.
I have very much enjoyed Christmases in other countries when I've been living there, especially as the pressures behind 'the food' were very different!

 

[Reynard]

You'd enjoy much of the Polish Christmas Eve meal @KnittyNorah - herrings, fish, seafood, vegetable salads, dumplings filled with mushrooms and sauerkraut, beetroot soup (barszcz czerwony), a compote of dried fruits (apple, pear, fig, apricot etc) flavoured with spices and orange, piernik (Lebkuchen) and a yeasted poppyseed cake made with honey.

There's only two of us, and I cook a nice dinner on Xmas Day, so we've scaled back considerably in recent years.

 

[Alex321]

I do like good mince pies and christmas pudding. Christmas cake too, but not really the outer icing, that is a bit over-sweet for my taste.

I was given a jar of rum-laced mincemeat for Christmas last year, and that is going into some very nice mince pies this year (which only I eat, as my wife can't stand rum)

Sprouts I love, but don't regard as a Christmas thing, they are for all winter. I don't regard clementines as a Christmas thing either, I eat them all year round (or whatever similar type citrus is available)

 

[KnittyNorah]

Dried boiled sprouts?
Most people grumble about them being too mushy!
You need to try some new recipes…..try https://onedishkitchen.com/smashed-brussels-sprouts-recipe
& you don’t like roasted spuds?
Oh my days…..can’t get enough of them, lovely gravy and/or bread sauce….

We will be veggie this year, with our off-spring in charge of cooking….can’t wait. Son already tried out a mushroom pate mix on us last weekend - very tasty! Not sure what the main course will be - we had veg wellington last year…..delicious!

Dry, in that obviously I won't be eating them with gravy made with the turkey juices.
Roasted spuds are a no-no as people tend to cook them in animal (esp.goose) fats at Christmas to make them 'richer'. Lots of the 'ready to roast' ones are prepared with goosefat too.

I don't expect people who are catering for many others to check every bit of food to make sure that it is suitable for my choices, or to make things specially for me - they have enough to do with checking allergens, food safety etc - but at the same time, I will not compromise my standards merely to make someone feel good that - in their mind - 'that old lady who lives alone isn't missing out on Christmas dinner'.

There is lots and lots of extremely delicious veggie and pescie food BUT 'traditional' Christmas dinners, of the sort to which I am endlessly offered invites and even pressured to attend, cater very poorly indeed for vegetarians.

 

[KnittyNorah]

You'd enjoy much of the Polish Christmas Eve meal @KnittyNorah - herrings, fish, seafood, vegetable salads, dumplings filled with mushrooms and sauerkraut, beetroot soup (barszcz czerwony), a compote of dried fruits (apple, pear, fig, apricot etc) flavoured with spices and orange, piernik (Lebkuchen) and a yeasted poppyseed cake made with honey.

There's only two of us, and I cook a nice dinner on Xmas Day, so we've scaled back considerably in recent years.

One of my best Christmases, food wise, was when I lived in Australia and the tradition was to go to the fish market and get barramundi and/or prawns ...
When I lived in the Middle East, we went down to the coast one Christmas, bought fresh sardines and had them grilled on freshly-made soft cheese flat bread, with a gorgeous chestnut, meringue and icecream confection to follow.
And with a nod to traditional UK Christmas dinner, spatchcocked quail, reared and slaughtered by a pal, grilled, and served with new potatoes (home grown in the conservatory!), home grown and frozen french beans and other veggies, gravy, stuffing etc made from the quail juices etc, and a pudding of tipsy laird (made with home-grown raspberries).
And both Austrian (Tyrol) and Berliner Christmas feasts had lots of high spots even if I wasn't going to eat the north German delicacy of hackpeter in a month of Sundays!

 

[vickster]

I'll be having salmon en croute with all the veggie trimmings (the potatoes etc will be veggie too).
The rest of the family are having lamb (which I never ate anyhow in my carnivore days)

Quail is hardly vegetarian (or pescatarian ) (ok the quail itself might be a veggie)