Turkey lunch.
Christmas dinner in London consists of turkey with red cranberry sauce, green Brussels sprouts and roast potatoes. Other options include a bread or bread and chestnut stuffing; and small sausages wrapped in bacon, called pigs in blankets.
Why turkey? To make a change. Because a turkey is larger therefore more convenient when you have extra visitors to entertain to a Christmas meal. After that, what's next?
Christmas Pudding
This hearty, filling dish is followed by dark, dried fruit Christmas pudding. Accompanied by cream.
I find this too rich. I prefer the contrasting colour of yellow custard.
Christmas Pudding in Dona Theresa Restaurant, Hatch End. The restaurant used to find customers were ringing another Dona Theresa Restaurant elsewhere in London, so the restaurant name was change to Zia Theresa, meaning Aunt Theresa.
You can see on the right of the picture the words Dona Theresa, which is hte name of a restaurant in Hatch End.
An individual Xmas pudding with a single portion of cream at a Christmas dinner in an Italian restaurant in Hatch End, London, England. Photo by Angela Lansbury.
We used to make a Christmas pudding weeks in advance. As it dries out, the flavour improves. An alcoholic drink can be added to the mixture as a preservative.
Another year, we bought three small size Christmas puddings from different supermarkets and compared them. When we made our choice, we bought a large one for Christmas Day.
This went on for years. Until the revolution. Heston Blumenthal introduced a citrus fruit in the middle of a Xmas pudding. The novelty sold out.
Now it has become a Xmas staple. Not cheap. Sixteen pounds sterling when I looked on Dec 17 2020.
In England Xmas pudding is sold for Xmas. The price comes down in January.
When we went America we found that Xmas pudding was available all year. But it was known by its old name, plum pudding. A pudding made, no longer with plums, but with dried fruit such as currants.
As a child growing up in in London, England, I assumed that turkey, Christmas pudding, and Christmas cake were all the standard all over the world. To a limited extent this is true, Many countries, those still in the Commonwealth, continue to enjoy the old traditions. Europe does things differently.
However, the English speaking Americans also don't eat turkey at Christmas. Why? Because they have already had turkey for Thanksgiving dinner in November.
When we spent Christmas in Prague, Czech Republic, we had Christmas dinner there at our hotel. The main dish was fish.
Afterwards we went to midnight mass at the nearby church. The service was in the Czech language. No translation into German, Russian nor English. Luckily, we could copy the others standing up and sitting down when instructed to do so by the priest. I could see the page numbers of the hymn book of the lady standing next to me. I recognized some of the famous music. If I remember rightly, we recognized Silent Night, Ave Maria and a classical piece of music.
In England, after Christmas Day dinner (lunch), when we Brits are in England, we watch the Queen's Speech. (Actually it is called the Queen's Christmas message. The Queen's speech is what she give to Parliament when she opens it after their recession.)
It's a treat to hear the Queen speaking the Queen's English. Here I am at Heathrow airport, London, England, beside a cut out model of the queen.
Tea time is the time when we produce the Christmas Cake. A heavy fruit cake. With white icing on top. Reminding you of snow. Most supermarkets can supply miniature cake topping such as red hat Santas, green plastic Christmas trees, reindeer.
Or you can buy a complete cake. Marks and Spencer usually stock one in a round, square or oblong shape. It must have marzipan under the icing. Make sure the expiry date is after Xmas day!
One year we left for Singapore before Xmas. I bought a Xmas cake. When I got it home, I discovered that the expiry date was before Xmas day.
Again, I had always assumed Xmas cake was universal. Until the foods of Europe reached the UK supermarkets.
Another British favourite is mince pies. Found everywhere in supermarkets. Cheap.
Mince pie.
Yule Log
If you visit Prague for Xmas, as we did, you can see the statue of composer Smetana, and a star commemorating him in the walk of fame.
France offers the world what the Americans call the Yule log. The English call it a log cake. The French call it buche noel. (Not to be confused with the French word bouche which means mouth.) This alternative cake can be a a Swiss roll, or spiral of sponge, with a chocolate covering, You scrape the chocolate icing with the tines of a fork to make it look like a log. Reminders of a log fire to warm you at Christmas time, in the snowy winter.
Stollen - Germany
Stollens are a solid roll shape cake with a scattering of dried fruit inside, white icing sugar covering the outside and, ideally, a marzipan centre. Stollens vary wildly in size and marzipan content. You can buy a traditional large roll, or cheaper individual miniature portions, which is more calorie controlling.
Stollens could have a large marzipan centre, a thin one like a pencil, or, disappointingly, no marzipan at all. If you are a marzipan addict, check the ingredients and/or photo on the packaging before buying.
Small individual stollen.
Large stollen.
Stollen with individual filling.
One year I bought a stollen ingredients kit. I wanted to know how it is made. Simple, really. Soak dried fruit overnight. Next day, mix up a batter. Add the fruit, well distributed. Roll out your soft marzipan into the length of the intended cake. Roll the marzipan in the cake mixture. Bake. Dust with icing sugar. However, the results were not as good as the top quality ones. Timing is critical to get it done but soft, with enough marzipan but not too much.
Marzipan is basically ground almonds mixed with fine sugar. When my late father was diagnosed with late-onet diabetes, which is diet related, I started checking sugar content of everything I bought. I found that marzipan content varied from 75% almonds for the dearer brands, to fifty percent sugar for the cheaper supermarkets own brand.
Panettone - Italy, Spain and Venezuela
More photos and text and websites will be added later.
See Statues of Smetana in Prague.
To sum up, you can enjoy the best of every country now in supermarkets around the world. My top three countries for Christmas are the UK, Singapore and America. The UK has Christmas decoration and crackers in window displays and restaurants. Singapore has street lights and decorated malls. American has giant displays on home lawns and rooftops and office blocks and skyscrapers.
Useful Websites
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/heston-from-waitrose-hidden-orange-christmas-pudding/700239-99398-99399
About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, fashionista. Please share links to your favourite posts or one or more of the blogs
travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com
dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com
