Welcome to FabulousFusionFood's Christmas Recipes — This is the first in my occasional series on festival foods and dishes. Though considered a Christian festival these days Christmas is basically the Northern European mid-winter festival in a different guise. There are Slavic, Celtic and Germanic versions of this festival and the Celts certainly had a mid-winter feast where they would eat all the season's surplus product. Partly this was to have some fun during the darkest part of the year but it was also meant as a way of blackmailing the gods. A case of 'if you don't bring Spring early we're going to starve and whose going to worship you then!' In many ways it's hardly surprising that just about every culture has some kind of midwinter festival. Here I'm presenting Christmas or Midwinter fare down the ages, finishing-off with all the recipes you will need for a traditional 'turkey and trimmings' Christmas dinner.

Christmas is such an important celebration in the Christian calendar that it is sometimes hard to remember that it has it's origins in the pagan midwinter festivals of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Indeed, the British Puritans of the 17th century did not count Christmas amongst the Christian feasts and sought to have it expunged from the annual list of feasts. But Christmas as a midwinter festival has such ancient and deep-rooted traditions that even the puritans were unable to eliminate the tradition.

Many northern cultures have a traditional midwinter festival, often around the shortest day of the year (21st December). Other cultures have traditions of gift-giving. It's said that the ancient Celts would use-up all their surpluses during this time, effectively daring the gods to provide an early spring the following year. Such traditions are very deep rooted and as one culture and belief system gives way to another, the old traditions are often kept, though dressed in new trappings. Such a festival is Christmas.

Though the feast day remains, the main star of the feast has changed over the years. In Britain it has moved from the beef and wild boar of the Celts, through the fowl of the Roman age to the venison and roast suckling pig of the Medieval through to the Renaissance ages. After this goose became popular and with the agricultural revolution we had beef and goose (beef is still popular). Turkey became briefly popular during Tudor times but quickly faded from the nation's dining tables and it was only through Dickens' popularizing the bird that it has become the centrepiece of the Christmas table today.

Ancient Midwinter Fare:

Boar was the feast animal par excellence for the Celts. Their whole cooking ethos was that of 'one pot cookery' and this would have been a special feast dish. Of course, this is not a truly 'traditional' recipe but it will give you the flavour of what a Celtic feast meal might have been like.

The boar stew should be served with a good chunk of Leavened Bread.

This next recipe is a classic Roman version of honeyed mulled wine that can either be served warm or can be served at room temperature to accompany starters: Extraordinary Spiced Wine.

If you want a dessert then you can serve a Ancient Fruit Dumplings. If you want to be truly authentic substitute nuts and apples for the other fruit as these would have been preserved for mid-winter.

Medieval and Elizabethan Christmas Fare:

The Advent fast, prohibiting meat, chicken, milk, cheese, butter, etc. (i.e., virtually all animal products), and lasting a time period that included the four Sundays preceding Yule, was THE primary motivation for the festal consumption of food during a medieval Christmas. This simple fact should always be kept in mind when planning a medieval feast in an authentic manner. Christmas itself ran from Christmas Day up through Epiphany, or Twelfth Day (January 6). The rules and standards of food at Christmas time lasted for this entire 12 day period.

One traditional Medieval Christmas dish was the pig's head served with mustard. This dish survives as the Elizabethan Collar of Brawn which was traditionally served at Twelfth Night.

Though this is much more of a high status dish the Goose in Sawse Madame recipe shows how a goose would be prepared, Medieval style, for a feast.

Of course, everyone thinks of Venison and the traditional Medieval meat. However, venison was a royal animal, generally only hunted by the king and his courtiers. Thus, if venison was served at Christmas at all it would have been served only at the royal household (apart from poached meat, of course). Still, here is a Venison recipes for you. This are excellent for the Feast of Steven (Boxing Day) and make an excellent antidote to too much turkey! This first is for a whole haunch of venison in Madeira sauce. It's a modern recipe but is based on a Medieval recipe for Venison with sack: Haunch of Venison with Madeira Sauce. This next is a true Medieval recipe for a venison pie: Venyson Y-bake.

The mince pie (see below), a staple of British Christmases made of fruit and suet grew from a Medieval original using venison offal. This later evolved into the Elizabethan My Lady of Portland's Mince Pyes

The Christmas cake for Medieval times would have been the 'bean cake' which is basically the King Cake which is described in the Other Christmas Recipes section below. In Medieval times the cake would have been shaped like a crown and would have had a bean inserted in it.

Wassail is a truly classic Christmas drink which from Medieval times has referred to a hot spiced wine for drinking healths on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and Twelfth Night celebrations. It was said to have originated with the fifth-century legend of the beautiful Saxon Rowena, who toasted the health of the Brythonic King Vortigern with the words Wæs-hael (your health!). Mead was also used (and may generally have been a more common base for Wassail than the far more expensive wine). Wassail was always served from a special bowl (which was definitely not the modern punch bowl) called the Loving Cup by early monks. It was fashioned from sturdy materials, most commonly wood and more rarely pewter. The special wooden bowl, sometimes rimmed with metal and dressed with festive ribbons, was not only the serving bowl but also the drinking bowl, as it was passed from hand to hand drunk from directly. The recipe given here is for Elizabethan Wassail though similar recipes are common from the Medieval age up until Victorian times.

Of course, another classic Medieval Yuletide drink would have been Hypocras.

Victorian Christmas Fare:

The Victorian Christmas represents the beginning of the modern family Christmas that we consider 'traditional' today. Christmas cards, Christmas trees and many of the decorations we hold to be an essential part of the Modern Christmas all have their roots. Even the family Christmas meal has its origins in Victorian times.

The 'modern' mince pie with its fruit filling is also a Victorian invention, though it has its origins in the Medieval and Elizabethan mince pye (as above). The modern version of the mince pie (below) can be used as it's very close to the Victorian original.

Rather than the modern turkey the centrepiece of the Victorian Christmas dinner would have been the Perfect Roast Goose (or the Traditional Roast Goose) with sage and onion stuffing (but if you want to be more adventurous with your stuffing check out the (Stuffing and Forcemeat recipes page). Indeed, this was my traditional family Christmas meal until about 20 years ago. If you're making this then you can use the vegetable recipes in the modern section below to accompany your goose.

Where goose was scarce, a dish called colonial goose was often served instead. This was basically mutton dressed as meat.

The traditional Christmas pudding in Victorian times would have been the Plum Pudding, antecedent and forerunner of all modern Christmas puddings as described in the section below. The Scottish version of this is the Cloutie Dumpling that is still traditionally made today. Of course, the truly classic boiled pudding is Eliza Acton's Christmas Pudding, which many cookery writers recommend even today.

In terms of traditional Christmas drinks, Wassail (above) remained popular in Victorian times. Equally popular was mulled ale (the recipe given here is for Mulled Mead, but works equally well for Ales, just add 2 tbsp honey) and eggnog.

If you would like an authentic bill of fare (menu) for a Victorian Christmas meal, then see this page for Charles Elmé Francatelli's Christmas Dinner.