Eleanor Barnett serves up festive classic favourites that graced dining tables during three eras of British history
In the midst of the Christmas festivities of 1577, the parson of the Cheshire village of Winwick preached against “gluttons and dronkerdes” who “thincke they maye eate and drinke as much as they will” during the season of goodwill. This “oftentimes” meant consuming “so much as they cannot disgest”, cramming “themselves like swine… till they bee out of theyr wittes like beastes”. Sound familiar?
Since at least the ninth century, Christmas has been associated with feasting and mirth in the Christian tradition. In fact, in the medieval period, Christmas was just the start of 12 full days of riotous consumption and celebration that ended on Twelfth Night (5 January) with another massive blowout.
Today, turkey takes centre stage on the Christmas Day menu. Native to the Americas, turkey arrived in Britain only in the 1520s and, though it featured in feasts of some of Britain’s wealthiest people, alongside swan and peacock, it wasn’t until the early 20th century that turkey came to be associated with the holiday. Instead, beef or goose were the roast meats of choice; earlier medieval Christmases often featured brawn –preserved salted boar’s meat or pork.
Stuart mince pie
By the late Tudor era, mince pies had become popular festive treats. Contrary to popular myth, Oliver Cromwell never explicitly banned them, even when the puritans outlawed celebrating Christmas itself in England in the 1640s and ’50s. Unlike the bite-sized fruity snacks we enjoy today with a glass of sherry, the mince pies of the 16th and 17th centuries were huge, intended to feed a lot of people as part of the main course. And, as the name suggests, the filling in mince pies was actually meat – veal, mutton, pork, turkey, capon (castrated cockerel) or beef, as in the recipe shared here, which is adapted from Robert May’s 1660 recipe book. With the familiar festive flavours imparted by dried fruits and spices such as nutmeg, mace and cloves, the meaty versions are also quite delicious.
Georgian Twelfth night cake
Do you end your feast with a traditional Christmas cake or a Christmas pudding?
The history of these holiday desserts is intertwined. Christmas pudding was actually first a kind of thick soup or stew known as plum pottage and later as plum pudding. In its original form, the spiced recipe included dried fruits and – you guessed it–more meat. The word pudding, in fact, derives from the French boudin, meaning animal innards, while ‘plum’ referred to any type of dried fruit. From the 17th century, the mixture thickened and took on its modern spherical shape; until the end of the 19th century it was served as an accompaniment to the main meat.
Meanwhile, Christmas cake evolved from a spiced currant cake known as a Twelfth cake that was traditionally consumed on Twelfth Night. In the medieval era, a bean was hidden inside the cake, and the lucky partygoer who found it in their slice was crowned king of the festivities. A hidden pea might also designate a Twelfth Night queen.
Over time, the legume was replaced with a coin, and in the Victorian period it migrated into the Christmas pudding. Along with the paper crowns that we hide in Christmas crackers, Christmas cake is a remnant of Twelfth Night revelry. The Georgian chef John Mollard published the first printed recipe for a Twelfth cake in1803. Give it a go – and why not hide a dried bean or pea in it for some added festive cheer?
Victorian smoking bishop
In need of a little booze to wash all this down? I’d recommend a smoking bishop. Made with port, roasted oranges and/or lemons, sugar and spices, this is an easy-to- make historical take on mulled wine that was associated with Christmas in the Victorian period. It also features in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. When the old miser Scrooge has his pivotal change of heart, he tells his clerk: “A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year!… we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!”
The recipe to the left is based on English food writer Eliza Acton’s 1845 version. The drink is probably described as ‘smoking’ because of the steam that rises from it.
A whole host of drinks made with wine were known as ‘ecclesiastics’, and were named after orders within the Catholic church – perhaps because of the mitre-like shape of the glass in which they were served, though in truth we don’t know for sure why this name stuck.
Replace the port with claret wine and you’ve got a smoking archbishop; use champagne to make a smoking cardinal; or use Hungarian white Tokaji wine for a smoking pope. Happy feasting!
Eleanor Barnett is a food historian at Cardiff University and @Historyeats on Instagram. Her book, Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation (Head of Zeus), is out in 2024