Early Christmas Preparations

I may be chastised for it but I know I’m not alone in my love of Christmas. I’m not one of these curmudgeonly people who complain about the shops having their Christmas displays up in April. I revel in the cosy feeling you get from the warm pine scent of the Christmas Tree standing next to the fire, its lights twinkling like the frost on the window pane. I adore the idea of roasting chestnuts by candlelight and boiling Christmas Puddings for six hours. As I get older, the meaning of Christmas takes on a greater significance. It is a time to spend with your loved ones, appreciative of what you have, and not what you don’t have. To play Christmas Carols and to gild walnuts, stringing them to the tree. Satsumas in Stockings. A glass of Sherry and a Mince Pie left out for Saint Nicholas. Sugar Plums and Plum Pudding.
Of course, Christmas is never as idyllic as our post-Christmas memories attest to: unless you are really organised, last minute food shopping is a bit like being in the centre of a rugby scrum or the eye or a tornado with people willing to commit GBH just to get to that last frozen turkey. The big day itself can be a stressful time too. You would think that once you’ve battled marauding supermarket turkey hunters, the hard part would be over, but no. You then have to roast the wretched thing, eyeballing it in the oven, with alarming regularity and ever-increasing blood pressure, lest it should be too dry. This is in addition to cooking 12 different types of vegetables, some of which are bound to be over-cooked, some undercooked and some just plain wrong. Once everything is on the table, you collapse in a fevered heap on the floor, longing for Boxing Day so you can serve turkey sandwiches and tinned biscuits.
This is how I remember early Christmases, which were always spent at my grandparents. The men of the household would visit the local pub, sometime around 10am (and I can’t really blame them, if you so much as entered the kitchen, my normally docile grandmother would be transformed into a snarling, spitting hellcat) and re-emerge with their stale smoke and beer smell, at around 1.30pm. My grandmother would be demoniacal about the turkey being perfect and would quite literally pull her hair out with frustration. One year my granddad persuaded her to cook to cook it upside down, because he had seen a TV chef prepare one that way, and quite rightly as it ensures that the breast is flooded with juices. However, not only did she cook it upside down, she also served it upside down. My mother had to pinch my leg hard enough to draw blood to assuage my childish snickering as this deformed, one-legged turkey was produced. In fact, it was the best turkey she had ever cooked but her mortification at serving less than attractive poultry ensured that every year thereafter, the turkey was cooked – and served – right side up.
To me, it still means cooking lots of ‘once a year’ things, but preparing things in advance, like pickles and preserves, for when, on Boxing Day, sated but still peckish, you put out cold meats and bread and cheese for people to lazily help themselves to.
I am looking forward to spending the first Christmas in our new house. I have every intention of baking Pfeffersneuss and Gingerbread People to hang on the tree, filling the house with their spicy smell. I am boycotting the latent commercialism of Christmastime in my own small way by making my own mincemeat (and therefore mince pies), Christmas pudding and Christmas cake (flavoured this year with mulled wine).
I have already made the Mincemeat in fact, cobbling together a number of recipes and then adding my own touch. I have six jars sitting, steeping, in the kitchen, flavoured with homemade Quince Brandy (quinces quartered, put into a Kilner jar with a cinnamon stick, some brown sugar and Star Anise, then topped up with Brandy) and Vodka infused with Plum Kernels which smells more like Marzipan than Marzipan itself (and is painfully easy to make: crack open the stones of plums, or more traditionally apricots or even cherries if it’s that time of the year, remove the kernels carefully, bruise them slightly to help release their strong almond aroma and put into a bottle of vodka. Shake a couple of times a week for about a month and then, as I have, forget about them. After about 4 or 5 months, strain the vodka through muslin, discarding the kernels, and decant.).

The recipe (to be tweaked and twisted as your store cupboard sees fit):
Freya's Mincemeat
750g of currants, sultanas, raisins (I omitted the currants as I don’t like them, and I used 200g of golden raisins in the this mix, which, along with the apple, produced a lighter coloured mincemeat than the more traditional rich Mahogany colour)
70g Dried Sour Cherries, cut roughly into halves if you can be bothered
90g or thereabouts of apple, peeled, cored and finely diced (dolls house size, as Tamasin Day Lewis puts it), about 2 apples worth
125ml Runny Honey
100g Suet
2 tsp Cinnamon
A good grinding of fresh black pepper
100g toasted and coarsely chopped almonds
150ml Brandy (either a fruit brandy, such as the Quince Brandy or just a regular cheap supermarket own brand)
Juice and zest of a large orange
100g chopped candied peel (the good stuff that comes whole and you have to chop by hand if possible)
Mix all the ingredients together in a large saucepan and heat gently until the suet has melted and coated all the ingredients. Decant into sterilised jars. If after a few days, the mincemeat looks a bit dry, add a little bit more brandy, shaking well to distribute throughout. Will be ready for Mince Pies after a fortnight but will taste better the longer it is kept.