ho, ho, ho...
It, as I'm sure you don't need me to tell you, is that time of year again. The time when that sadly rather common specimen; the unreconstructed male, moves into the kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I am all in favour of men in the kitchen, after all, you may have realised by now that I am of that gender, and I like cooking. I am also full of admiration for anyone who can be bothered to tackle the bloated and unpleasant meal that is supposedly the 'traditional' Christmas Dinner. A person who can make the pasty hormonal carcase of one of Mr Matthews' finest into something vaguely edible deserves some sort of an award.The question that goes through my mind more or less every year, is; why bother? If you want to spend all day in the kitchen there are plenty of more interesting and challenging things to cook. What prompted this bah-humbug message was; whilst standing waiting for the lift at Sainsbury this morning, I overheard a conversation between a trio of men. I would have to describe them as artisans, and in their 50's. At the risk of sounding snobbish, I would have said they would be more likely to be found in the public bar than the lounge (this distinction probably means absolutely nothing to an overseas reader, and indeed, given the democratisation of pub culture, means very little anymore).
You notice how carefully I skate around the class thing, after all in Tone's Britain we're all middle class now, whatever we might have been. Anyhow, back to the plot, as we waited for the lift, which seemed to be stuck on the first floor, these three gents were discussing their Christmas dinner. Which, it would appear, in an entirely heterosexual way, they were planning to have together.
'When are you going to do all this?' one of the gents asked of another.
'I'll start cooking first thing tomorrow,' came the reply.
My mind boggled, what enterprise was so enormous (or so tough) that they had to start boiling the sprouts fully twenty-four hours before the rest of the nation. I peeked at their carrier bags hoping for a clue, but, other than being quite compact and normal in appearance, clues there were none.
I have friends for whom the Christmas Dinner is an annual marathon, and is prepared for in much the same way. This fine, as long as you are enjoying yourself, it does have some of the same masochistic elements, with the additional satisfaction of knowing that at the end of the race there should be some half decent scoff. But what do you do that is so very different? I hear the multitudes cry. The short answer is that I usually cook something, commonly with the AP, and it will have been something bought on the market shortly before hand; often game. I see the Christmas Dinner as an opportunity to experiment, not necessarily to show off. As for pudding, I have a seven or eight year old Christmas Pudding in the cupboard (a bought one), which is available for Christmas parties and Bar Mitzvahs, should anyone have an interest. I think it highly unlikely that I'll ever eat it, but it's there alongside a can of smoked oysters in case of the collapse of civilisation or a nuclear war.
This year, weather, car mechanics and acts of god permitting, the Nottingham correspondent and I are planning to make a brief foray into the Deep North, applying the admirable principle of offending both sides of the family equally. I have no idea what food will occur, although I have a pineapple and a bag of pistachio kernels just in case.
Seasonal best wishes to one and all.
posted by Lampy @ 12/23/2006 11:29:00 am
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