When you sit around the table this Christmas, whether you are tucking into a turkey or not, you are taking part in a ritual that has changed and developed over 100s of years. The history of your Christmas dinner is a story of adaptation and evolution.
As Christmas time comes round each year,” wrote the Nottingham Journal on Christmas Eve 1912, “a succession of dismal prophets never fail to arise to denounce the traditional Christmas dinner, and to warn mankind of the insidious dangers which lurk in the plum pudding, the goose or turkey, and the mince-pie.”
Thankfully, the reporter gave a firm rebuttal to the curmudgeonly sentiment. Having consulted a physician it was decided that such condemnation was “all nonsense” if “a decent moderation was observed”. As for the plum pudding, that was a “very nutritious food” for the young, but “for people past middle age it has an element of danger and should be eaten sparingly”.
Whether you’re going to eat in moderation this Christmas or overindulge, you’ll be honouring a centuries-old tradition that our ancestors enjoyed as much as us. Indeed, as French chef Alfred Suzanne wrote in 1904 about the English obsession with Christmas dinner, “There is one day of the year where English cuisine unfurls all its banners and shows itself in its national colours. This day, waited for so impatiently by the biggest eaters as much as the small, is Christmas Day.”
Medieval Christmas dinner
Unsurprisingly, given that it only happens once a year, the evolution of Christmas dinner has been slow. In medieval times, fasting and feasting were the order of the day. In the pre-Reformation Catholic calendar, Advent dictated that 24 days of fish, vegetables and almond milk, but no animal-derived foods, was observed prior to Christmas. So when the big day finally arrived, there was real cause for celebration. Food historian Annie Gray tells us that “in 1213 the court of King John took delivery of 24 hogsheads of wine, 200 heads of pork, 50lb of pepper, 2lb of saffron and 15,000 herrings, among a vast array of other things”.
Tudor and 17th-century Christmas dinner
Following in their forebears’ footsteps, our 16th- and 17th-century ancestors were keen to prove their wealth and status with ostentatious centrepieces. Boar’s head, turkey, goose, swan and peacock were all served up – sometimes with their head still on in the case of the fowl, or baked into a pastry pie with the fully feathered head, wings and tail baked on skewers and reattached before serving. The rule was, the bigger and harder to obtain, the better.
In the same period, mince pies made of mutton, sweet herbs and fruits became popular, along with plum pottage. It was made of a boiled leg of beef with “two quarts of red wine, and two quarts of old strong beer” seasoned with “cloves, mace and nutmegs” according to the sixth edition of Prof Richard Bradley’s recipe book The Country Housewife and Lady’s Director (1732). The recipe also included boiled apples, currants, “Raisins of the Sun” and “half a pound of prunes”. Once the beef was removed the remaining porridge-like liquid was drunk like a broth.
Plum pottage was eventually superseded by plum pudding, which had its heyday from the 17th century onwards, when boiling the mixture in a cloth became a popular alternative. The making of the plum pudding became a household event in the Victorian era, especially for children. The pudding was traditionally made on what became known as "Stir-up Sunday" on the last Sunday before the start of advent. A silver coin was put in the pudding and it was considered lucky to find the coin in your serving (as long as you didn't accidentally bite into it or swallow it). “It is thought of days, if not weeks, before. To be allowed to share in the noble work, is a prize for young ambition” commented the Illustrated London News in 1848.
Mince pies with no meat - Victorian Christmas for the frugal
A history of Christmas dinner must include mince pies, which remained meaty until the 19th century, when the ratio of meat to fruit dropped significantly. Charles Elmé Francatelli’s A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes (1852) provided a recipe for a “Cheap Kind Of Mincemeat” that contained “eight ounces of stoned raisins, eight ounces of washed and dried currants, one pound of tripe, one pound of apples, one pound of chopped suet, four ounces of shred candied peel, one pound of moist sugar, one ounce of allspice, the juice and the chopped rind of three lemons, [and] half a gill of rum”.
Those mince pies that did still include meat as the main ingredient were filled with steak (for the wealthy) and feet or offal (for the poor). By the final quarter of the 19th century, recipe books were regularly providing meatless options. Cassell and Co.’s Dictionary of Cookery (1892) offered five variations on the traditional meat mince pie – all “without beef”. By the 20th century, the addition of beef suet was the only real nod towards the original meat-based pie.
Working-class families would have celebrated in reduced circumstances, with less meat and more fruit and vegetable trimmings such as the “apple-sauce and mashed potatoes” enjoyed by the Cratchits in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843). Some of the poorest even resorted to crime. A report in the Morning Post on 27 December 1845 tells how a thief “succeeded in abstracting from the kitchen a fine large turkey, which was intended for the Christmas dinner, and also a quantity of raisins and currants”.
Christmas dinner during the two world wars and beyond
The world wars posed a threat to Christmas dinner, but the best was made of the challenging circumstances. Rationing in the final year of the First World War, and from the start of 1940 in the Second World War, forced cooks to get creative. The Government issued pamphlets offering recipe advice using the most basic of ingredients, and it was estimated in 1943 that only 10 per cent of the home-front population would enjoy a traditional dinner.
However, the meal many of us eat today – roast turkey, stuffing, pigs-in-blankets, bread sauce, gravy, Brussels sprouts, roast potatoes, Christmas pudding and brandy-butter sauce – is a mere 70 years old, becoming the norm for most British households in the 1950s. The advent of chest freezers, packet sauces, tinned food and ready-made puddings in the late 20th century have theoretically made preparing the Christmas feast a breeze compared with our ancestors’ travails. But if there’s one thing we still have in common, it’s the stress of not messing it up. A poem published in the Yorkshire Gazette in 1839 sums it up:
The beef without mustard!
My fate’s to be fluster’d.
And there comes the custard
To eat with the hare!
Such flesh, fowl, and fishing,
Such waiting and dishing,
I cannot help wishing
A woman might swear.