WITH the heady scent of tradition in the air, there can be few things more festive than the meats of the kings of yore. Pheasant, partridge, venison and the rest would each have been found on the historic Yuletide banqueting table and, as a result, all those warm spices and sweetmeats so prevalent in historic cuisine, and nowadays so associated with the flavours of Christmas, are the natural bedfellows to those meats.
If the history books are to be believed, we have Henry VIII to ‘thank’ for first adding turkey to the table, but as far as I’m concerned he would have done better to leave it in the Americas where it belonged. He may well have been the first monarch to include it on the Christmas menu but the lion’s share of the blame must lie with turkey itself, for the bird’s capacity for fast and inexpensive growth is the chief reason behind its usurpation of the goose, hog and haunch.
No sooner has December found its feet than descends the unending supply of festive well-wishers, card-delivering drop-ins and gift-laden family members, each one more half-starved and thirsty than the last. Well bring ’em in, I say, and use the opportunity to get through that mountain of game you’ve been diligently amassing over the past several months. It may even inspire them
