Christmas is a wonderful time of year to enjoy the company of family and friends, who are often living in many different locations around the globe. The Spirit of Christmas is celebrated with the best of wine and food, and often follows traditions of the past.
Increasingly, the fare is changing and is becoming more representative of the climate and the cuisine that is available at that time of year.
The Knights of the Round Table certainly knew how to entertain!
Christmas - a reflection of the Grandeur of Medieval England
Feasting and revelry, tournaments and jousting-this was the pattern of the medieval Christmas, and unlike Christmas today it was by no means limited to a mere two or three days of celebration, to be followed a week later by a sometimes half-hearted welcome to the New Year. In those far-off times hospitality was rough but magnificent and the festivities would last for a fortnight or more, when the barons and knights kept open house.
But it was on Christmas Day that the grand feast, given by the feudal chieftain to his friends and retainers would take place with all the pomp and ceremony he could muster. Most important of the dishes served up on this great occasion would be the boar's head. With this the banquet commenced, and heralded by a fanfare of trumpets, and to the strains of the minstrels, the chief serving man carried it into the banqueting hall on a plate of gold or silver, for no meaner metal was acceptable. Behind him came a stately procession of nobles, knights and ladies, and as they followed him to the table he sang:
Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes Domino.
The hoar's head in hand bring I
With garlands gay and rosemary;
I pray you all sing merrily,
Qec estis in convivio.
The boar's head would be magnificently garnished with herbs and bay leaves, with either a large apple speared on the end of each tusk or else an orange placed between them. Mustard was considered an indispensable accompaniment and, indeed, when many centuries later the parliaments of the Commonwealth tried to put an end to Christmas feasting, and with it the traditional boar's head, it was from the mustard sellers that the loudest complaints came.
Of course, Parliament did not succeed in banishing the Christmas festivities forever, and though with the Restoration most of the age-old customs came back, the boar's head never regained its supreme place at the Christmas table.
Second only in importance to the boar's head at the medieval Christmas feast was the peacock, and infinite care and patience was needed for its preparation before, in all its glory, it was carried to the table. First the skin was stripped off very carefully in order to leave the plumage undamaged; then the bird was stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, basted with yoke of egg, and roasted.
When cooked and partially cooled it was sewn up again in its feathers, the beak gilded, and it was then ready for the table. Sometimes the plumage, too, was covered with gold leaf and a piece of cotton, saturated with spirits, placed in its beak and set alight.
By Cock & Pie
The privilege of bringing in the peacock was given to the lady-guests most distinguished by birth or beauty. To the sound of music, one of them would carry it into the dining hall-the others following in due order-and place it before the master of the house or his most honoured guest. This was the sign for the tournament to begin, and the victor in the lists was then expected to show his skill in carving the peacock.
On some occasions the bird would be served in a pie, its plumed head appearing above the crust at one end, and its magnificent fanned tail at the other. It was over this splendid dish that the knights-errant were supposed to swear, in the best traditions of chivalry, that they would undertake whatever perilous enterprise came their way-and from this old custom comes the oath of Shakespeare's day, "By cock and pie!"
Boar's head and peacock were but two of the many dishes that graced the medieval Christmas table. There would be geese and capons as well, pheasants drenched in ambergris, carps' tongues and-almost a national dish-furmante. Sometimes it is referred to as frumenty, or furmety, but whatever its name, it was made to the same traditional recipe. The basic ingredient was wheat, pounded till it could be separated from the husks, and then simmered for several hours. When cool, "clean fresh broth" was added, then milk or sweet milk of almonds, and the yokes of eggs; it was heated again, and was then ready to be served with the venison or fresh mutton.
Venison was rarely served without it, but furmante sweetened with sugar, and presumably the "clean fresh broth" being omitted, was a favourite dish of itself.
In later times there were to come those things which are today an essential part of the Christmas fare-the mince pies and Christmas pudding, which were first known as mutton pies (or Christmas pies), and plum porridge. As early as 1596 mutton pies were an established favourite; later on neats tongues were substituted for the mutton, but otherwise the remaining ingredients were much the same as those used today. Plum porridge, or plum pottage, was served with the first course of the Christmas dinner.
It was made by boiling beef or mutton with broth, thickened with brown bread; when half boiled, raisins, currants, prunes, cloves, mace and ginger were added, and when it had all been thoroughly boiled it was sent to the table as an accompaniment to the best meats.
Plum pudding, however, seems to have been much more up-to-date, and a recipe published in 1675 is almost identical with the modern one both as regards the ingredients and the cooking, which is by boiling the pudding in a basin. By Addison's time, plum porridge and plum pudding were of equal importance, and he went so far as to write that of neither does any man "of the most rigid virtue give offence by an excess ... because they are the first parts of the dinner."
But the Englishman's feasting was not limited to the Christmas season-in fact, he had the reputation of "living well" all the year round.
A much travelled writer of the early seventeenth century, who was familiar with most countries of Europe, wrote with great enthusiasm of the immense variety of food in England and (in contrast to our reputation today!) of the much higher standard of cooking compared with other countries on the Continent.
