At this time of year I always write a festive-themed post for my blog. I’ve covered mince pies in Pride and Prejudice , Christmas cake in Jane Eyre, fudge in Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales and rice cake from D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Last year I broke away from the Western Christian tradition and opted for Hannukah doughnuts from Francesca Segal’s The Innocents.
But I have never written about Christmas dinner itself. So it’s time to remedy that.
Christmas dinner makes an appearance in what is undoubtedly the book most closely associated with Christmas: Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Dickens’s short novel, first published in 1843, tells of the redemption of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge through the interventions of the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future. Before his conversion Scrooge responds to Christmas greetings with the retort, ‘Bah, Humbug’, but afterwards he exclaims, ‘A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!’
Christmas food appears in abundance in the vision Scrooge is shown by the Ghost of Christmas Present. The Ghost appears in the likeness of Father Christmas from traditional folklore: a giant, in a green robe, trimmed with white fur, and with a holly wreath on his head. He is seated on a throne comprised of ‘turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes and seething bowls of punch…’
The Ghost then takes Scrooge out into the streets of London and around the shops selling their wares for last-minute shopping: ‘There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes… there were piles of filberts (a variety of hazelnut) … there were Norfolk Biffins (a variety of apple, often dried for eating out of season).’
Finally, the Ghost takes Scrooge to the home of his employee, Bob Cratchit. Scrooge, unsurprisingly, is a mean and unscrupulous employer who pays low wages and begrudges Bob even the one day paid holiday of Christmas Day. But despite their poverty, and the illness of their youngest child, Tiny Tim, the Cratchit family are wealthy in love and optimism. As the narrator notes, ‘They were not a handsome family; they were not well-dressed; … But they were happy , grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time.’
The Cratchits’ positive outlook on life extends to the Christmas meal itself. Everyone is keen to help with the preparations: ‘Mrs Cratchit made the gravy … Master Peter mashed the potatoes…Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates’. And the family’s praise of the meal knows no bounds, although the narrator makes it clear portions were far from huge: ‘There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delights (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last!’
Their generosity is also reflected in the fact that Bob insists on raising a glass to Scrooge – despite his wife’s reluctance – since his miserly pay has paid for the food.
Nowadays, goose is regarded as a luxury meat at Christmas: being bonier than turkey, and with a larger rib cage, weight for weight it feeds fewer people than a turkey and is more expensive. But in the 19th century, goose was the meat of choice, with poorer people joining a goose club in order to save up for one); turkey was the preserve of the affluent. And so, at the end of the book, when he wakes up on Christmas morning after his night-time visions, Scrooge’s first act is to buy a huge turkey and send it by cab (for it is too expensive to carry) to the Cratchits’ home in Camden Town.
Well, I haven’t made a Christmas dinner to accompany this post: I’ve waited as late as I could to write it, but there are still three days until Christmas. And anyway, I’m being cooked for this year… Whatever you eat, I hope you have a delicious and heartwarming meal.