From slow-roasted cygnets to luscious fruit pies, our ancestors knew how to ‘do’ Christmas, as food historian Ivan Day demonstrates.
Mutton seems a strange choice for Christmas but, as Day explains, the roasted poultry we associate with traditional Christmas dinner would only have been one part of a bigger feast: “Medieval people would roast fowl, geese and wild birds throughout the year but especially at Christmas because they were at their fattest. Cygnets were a special Christmas dish because they hatched in June and were plump and tender by December.” As early as the 16th century, farmers were advised to grow turkeys for the Christmas table but it was modern farming that really established it as the definitive Christmas bird. “Geese are hard to farm but turkeys are meat factories,” explains Day. “What we eat now at Christmas is more about economics than taste. We’ve whittled dinner down to three courses of three or four dishes but in the past, a Christmas feast would’ve been two courses of more than 20 dishes each.”
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