Food
Do you like mince pies? Or Christmas pudding? Or that marzipan-coated fruitcake that gets wheeled out with more mince pies, just when you've almost got your breath back from lunch? I wouldn't be surprised if you don't. But nor would I be surprised if you eat them all anyway, even as you complain at their plumminess and the way they sit uncomfortably in your poor, distended stomach.
The British groaning at their own Christmas desserts is a great festive ritual. Turkey and trimmings are generally liked well enough, despite large numbers of sprout-haters. It's only at the sweet stage that really violent objections are raised. All those black and spirituous currants pressed into pudding, pies and cake and eaten at indecently short intervals, one fruited lump on top of the other, bring home the claustrophobia of the family gathering. When the merry flaming pudding appears, some people gracelessly refuse or disparage it. Others wearily tuck in with trowelfuls of alcoholic butter and suffer torpor at best, bile at worst. Still we serve and eat these raisiny, suety confections year after year. Why? Well, it's traditional, isn't it?
Up to a point. A variant of the Yuletide mince pie does date back to the middle ages. In its original form, though, the sugar, spices and "raisins of the sun" would have been merely seasoning for "a learned mixture" of meats packed into a raised pastry coffin. The great Christmas cake covered with almond paste is also an ancient English invention, though originally it was a yeasted tea-bread, often perfumed with rosewater and coloured with sunny saffron. Its transformation into a dark block, almost indistinguishable from plum duff, is probably the result of bourgeois German influence from the last century. The single Christmas pudding, the crowning glory of this age-old feast, is also a Victorian contrivance.
Hilary Spurling, the food historian, has noted the irony of the "diet-conscious" 20th century clinging to the "heaviest and most indigestible" puddings on 25 December, while forgetting the lighter delicacies present in our earlier culinary heritage. The Tudors and Jacobeans - whom we tend to think of as indiscriminate hogs - would actually have seen our annual dried fruit-fest as way over the top. In the 16th and 17th centuries, a Christmas day feast ended with a delightful array of light varied "banqueting stuff " - the Elizabethan term for a table full of sweets. There would be "marchpanes" sculpted into pretty animal shapes. Gilded baskets held little sponges, macaroons, quince sweetmeats and translucent preserved fruits. Fools, trifles, white creams and jellies soothed the fragile constitution. Vibrant bowls of pears, baked "wardens" and sliced oranges jostled with comfits and candies and brightly coloured tarts. Scented herbs and flowers might be strewn on the table. The whole glorious spread was designed - unlike our dutiful plum cakes - to refresh and delight the senses.
These marmalade squares are an excellent component of any table of "banqueting stuff ", rather like a bitter English version of Turkish delight. Why not try them? You don't have to eat mince pies, you know.
Christmas marmalades
Quarter two lemons and remove their pips. Put in a saucepan with four peeled, cored Cox's apples and 100ml water. Simmer for 45 minutes or until soft. Puree and return to the pan with an equal weight of sugar. Boil to 105 C or until gelatinous, add a drop of orange flower water and spread on greaseproof paper to cool. Cut into small squares, dust with sugar and eat with a fork. Or for real Tudor authenticity, box them up and send as a gift to the Queen.
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