Christmas Future - Sanity and Austerity

This is not the refrain of the middle-aged grump that Christmas starts earlier every year. Though it appears to do so - Miracle on 34th Street (the original, not the inferior Richard Attenborough version) currently on Film 4 while November is far from over. But as we seem to clutch on to Christmas as some sort of lifestyle lifeboat I was wondering what is to this generation what the giant turkey was to my mother's.


In the Seventies there was a mania at Christmas for having the biggest turkey as some sort of status symbol. Mad. People regularly found their ovens too small to cook the damn things, and had to remove the legs for cooking separately, mothers forced to rise before dawn to start the cooking if it was to have any chance of being eaten before nightfall. Turkey risotto, sandwiches, broth, curry, rissoles and cold cuts followed the big day's feast seemingly endlessly. Ad nauseam for sure.


I guess that the goose, rather a return to the 19th century perhaps, has become the contemporary equivalent - I must admit that I've never cooked a whole one, only a leg and a breast bought on different occasions (at Lidl btw). Two years ago I did a small sirloin, and have heard that it - or a rib of beef - is gaining in popularity. The pheasant has been mentioned in dispatches for the Christmas board, which seems more a nod to snobbery than enjoyment - I have never had one roasted in either domestic or commercial circumstances that was worth the effort of eating, however many slices of fatty bacon are wrapped over it. Dry and tough is invariably the rule that way; braised or stewed is another matter. The three/four/five bird roast is another option growing in favour. Never having tried this I can't comment on how they turn out.


Of course there are turkeys and turkeys - there's a world of  difference between a frozen battery-reared jobbie and a Kelly Bronze, for instance. The latter is expensive but worth it for a special occasion, which December 25th surely is.With austerity pushing cooks towards economy it's unlikely the behemoth bird will make a comeback.

My own prediction for Christmas future is the increasing importance of the stuffing, sausages, and other accompaniments meaty and vegetable. They show care and generosity (of time and effort). For us, though we remain in funds, I think the smallest turkey crown I can find and either a small beef joint or a goose breast again will feature. And possibly for variety, if I can get the timings right, a frozen pack of four quails that is already in the freezer (Lidl again), the antithesis of the titanic turkey of Christmas past.