Author Topic: Do you actually like Christmas food? (Read 13955 times)

bobb · « **on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:09:15 pm »

I could do without it.

First up - Turkey. Now I know many people are veggie or vegan, but bear with me. Turkey is the shittiest of all the traditional roasts. Just go with roast beef and yorkshire pudding. There's no need to go with something that you would never normally eat just because it's christmas.

Christmas pudding. It's OK - I don't mind it, but I'd never bother with it otherwise.

There are many other Chrimbo foods, so I'll leave it to you....

eck · « **Reply #1 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:14:26 pm »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIcnqgHHlUg

ian · « **Reply #2 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:32:54 pm »

I quite like turkey. It goes in the slow cooker Christmas morning (we don't eat till the evening) with salt and herbs, a splash of olive oil and white wine and that's it. We did admittedly have to run out on Christmas eve and get a larger slow cooker last year (we got the turkey from a local butcher and it was bigger than usual). My dad once bought (or nicked, otherwise acquired) a turkey so large that he had to chop it half with an axe to fit it in the oven. Maybe it wasn't a turkey, it was possibly an emu or something that had 'wandered off' from a zoo. He once bought an entire pig home from the pub. Seriously (he had to steal a supermarket trolley). At least it was dead.

Anyway, that means I don't have to faff with oven temperatures and stuff for the rest. It's all a bit of a ritual, though with less bloodletting, orgies, and human sacrifice. It's about the only time I have a roast dinner, as meals go it's a bit of a chore to do often. If I really want one I'll go to the pub.

Christmas pud seems a great idea but I'm always too full so I've stopped bothering with buying it. I'm not a dessert person anyway. A slice of christmas cake is fine though, especially after a long, chilly walk. Marzipan is my vicodin.

Those bacony-date things though? Fucking barfworthy. I ate one once because I thought it was pig-in-blanket. WTF?

bobb · « **Reply #3 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:35:32 pm »

Yeah, but would you do a turkey at any other time of year?

ian · « **Reply #4 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:44:07 pm »

Sure, though I don't often see it (and we only eat happy, free-roaming stuff). It's just a big chicken though. I think I'd eat an emu. Probably best to kill them before they kill you (we all know what really happened to Rod).

pcolbeck · « **Reply #5 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:44:15 pm »

I would have turkey more often if it was cheaper for free range. I prefer beef but its nice to have turkey sometimes and why not at Christmas. When it was just me and Mrs Pcolbeck we would have pheasant instead of turkey. You can't have bread sauce with beef but it goes well with pheasant.
I like all the other Christmas foods really even the sprouts. I'm even branching out into foreign Christmas foods such as lebkuchen.

mrcharly-YHT · « **Reply #6 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:48:24 pm »

I'm not over-keen on turkey. Best xmas dinner I had was a really, really good roast chicken, covered in bacon and with butter stuffed under the skin.

Love the rest, including sprouts.

Particularly fond of christmas cake.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #7 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:53:53 pm »

I like Christmas cake. Well, I like most cake. But I do love marzipan.

bobb · « **Reply #8 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:54:00 pm »

I love sprouts. Fortunately my dad has an allotment, so we get them throughout the sprout season. Ironically, my dad doesn't really like them, but grows them just so we can have some at Christmas.

I'll eat a mince pie or two, but generally they can fuck off.....

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #9 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:54:50 pm »

Oh yes, sprouts are gorgeous and much maligned.

ian · « **Reply #10 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:56:45 pm »

I like sprouts and cabbage any time. There is that dread, foetid pall on a christmas morn when all the local old people (and this is Surrey, death's waiting room) decide to boil them for a couple of hours.

I don't like it when people try to 'moisten their turkey' (that really should be a euphemism) by putting butter in, under the skin, and on top of it. Until it's basically under an entire butter mountain. They're terrified it might be 'dry.' That's why God invented gravy. Honestly, you'd think some people had never read the Bible to the end where he talks about that kind of thing.

Barbecued turkey is good, though I mostly can't be bothered, plus I'm usually pretty flammable by Christmas evening so shouldn't be near flames.

hellymedic · « **Reply #11 on:** 13 December, 2017, 12:59:51 pm »

I am not fond of turkey and our household is too small to justify a big bird.
We like the trimmings that are traditionally served and they are too greasy for us to eat with a fatty meat so it will be a chicken again this year.
David doesn't like Christmas cake or pudding much. He's not to keen on mince pies either.
Lots of other Nice Stuffs are available and we will indulge.

Hot Flatus · « **Reply #12 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:09:31 pm »

I like roast dinners, but in the modern context of food on hand at all times I really don't see the point of feasting.

Pud and brandy butter are great. Once a year.

I'll do the cooking this year, and M-i-L is in for a nasty shock if she thinks she's going to railroad us into filling our fridge with Turkey and all the accoutrements so that she can stuff herself stupid but leave more food waste than food consumed.

We'll have 5 courses. But they will be nouvelle cuisine size. By the end of the meal we will be only just not hungry.

lahoski · « **Reply #13 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:10:41 pm »

Turkey is shit. We do pork belly, it's the shit. You can't cock it up, it's always delicious and tender. My MIL did goose one year. It had the texture of old-person-rosbif. I have no idea how that happened.

ElyDave · « **Reply #14 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:12:51 pm »

pretty much all but the turkey, planning a very slow roasted shoulder of lamb this year.

Sprouts, yes please, I once lived down the road from a sprout farm a sack of them for £2. Made more than that portioning them up and becoming the office sprout dealer

Christmas pud and cake, could eat them all year, but these days generally restrict myself to a small helping and a single slice of cake.

citoyen · « **Reply #15 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:21:40 pm »

I would very happily have something (anything) other than turkey, but my wife and son insist on it, plus we're having my parents and sister over for Christmas this year and they will be expecting it.

We usually just have a crown rather than a full bird. I was tasked with buying one when I was in Waitrose the other day and they only had medium sized ones in, no large ones. It looks like more than enough to feed six people to me so I got it. My wife wasn't so sure, but that's because she likes to have plenty left over to ensure we go through the rigmarole of having turkey for every bloody meal for the following week. WHY???

I just hope she doesn't insist on using the carcass to make soup again like she has done before. It stinks really badly during cooking and the results don't taste great either.

I like mince pies but, as noted elsewhere, only good ones made with decent pastry. Most shop-bought mince pies are very disappointing.

Christmas pudding is fantastic, but again can be disappointing - sometimes very stodgy and heavy.

Sprouts are great. Boiling them is insane though. Surest way to kill them. I find braising them the best cooking method, to ensure they retain some colour and crispness. Can't be doing with all the frippery that some people insist on. Sprouts with bacon and chestnuts is a meal in itself, not a side dish. Sprouts should be celebrated for their sproutiness, not buried under other flavours.

T42 · « **Reply #16 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:28:51 pm »

We had turkey for the last 25 years, for the Inlaw Paw. Had one last year through sheer inertia but didn't enjoy it, so it's goose this year, with red cabbage, chestnuts, sprouts, knödel and roast spuds.

bobb · « **Reply #17 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:31:07 pm »

Quote from: Flatus on 13 December, 2017, 01:09:31 pm

We'll have 5 courses. But they will be nouvelle cuisine size.

Ponce

ian · « **Reply #18 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:35:44 pm »

No to goose. It tastes like a chicken that's gone a bit off. Oh it's so moist they claim, but then so is wet tarmac.

And anything with goat cheese. I was a vegetarian for years, and it was goat cheese that really ended my run. At some point in the early 2000s every fucking veggie alternative started to feature the festering capricious curd.

Russell · « **Reply #19 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:36:24 pm »

Yes, but not bought food. Only that made by Mrs R!

Actually what we like best are the extras, the trimmings!

jsabine · « **Reply #20 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:43:25 pm »

Fortunately neither my parents, my wife nor me are keen on turkey. I got a (small) crown last year after Xmas, and it confirmed that we won't be doing that again - dry, tasteless, and the leftovers hung around for ages.

Wing rib of beef, rack of venison and rack of lamb are ordered for delivery on Monday, and we'll decide what to eat on Xmas day later (probably the beef, I'd say) - my parents are staying for 9 days, so we'll have plenty of time to make up our minds.

Other stuff - I like Xmas pud and mince pies (though having them occasionally is *just* fine), but was never keen on sprouts.

Then I had some that weren't overcooked. Finely chopped, lightly sautéed with a sprinkling of black pudding - mmmmn.

Goose - it's nice, but always seems staggeringly poor value to me. Goat's cheese - mmmmn. An essential for any cheeseboard. Probably two or three varieties.

citoyen · « **Reply #21 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:45:40 pm »

Quote from: ian on 13 December, 2017, 01:35:44 pm

festering capricious curd

That sounds like a particularly ripe Shakespearean insult. And is a truly wonderful way to describe goats cheese.

Riggers · « **Reply #22 on:** 13 December, 2017, 01:48:18 pm »

Yes, I like Christmas food thank you Bobbers.

Not so, Christmas Pud and Cake. You can stuff those up your bottom. If that's alright?

In the past two years, I've only started to like Mince Pies.

hellymedic · « **Reply #23 on:** 13 December, 2017, 02:36:52 pm »

Eight years ago, Sainsbury's cancelled our 21 December delivery because SNO.

We had a lamb joint with redcurrant glaze from the freezer.

We did not suffer.

I do not like feeling stuffed and HATE wasting food.

Most of our Christmas food will come in small portions or be kept for later. I minimise the very perishable.

David dislikes sprouts so they won't feature.

fimm · « **Reply #24 on:** 13 December, 2017, 02:55:08 pm »

Oh yes.
We are going to my parents this year. Mum likes to buy a bigish turkey so that we can get two meals out of it. And someone (me or Mum) will boil up the bones and make soup. Nom. Actually I think I agreed I would do the stripping of the bones. It is a messy job, but I quite like it.
Bread sauce? Nom.
Sprouts? Nom.
Parsnips? Nom.
Whole onions cooked in the oven with all the other roast veg? Someone else can have mine. I'll swap with my sister who doesn't like parsnips.
Christmas pudding (made to my grandmother's recipe)? Nom. And cake and mince pies and shortbread. Nom nom nom.

Mr fimm is half Austrian. They always have Wiener Schnitzel on Christmas Eve, so now we do that for my parents too. My mother in law is British, so when we go out there we have all the Christmas Eve traditions (which is when the Austrians celebrate) and then we have to take stuffing mix and Christmas pudding out with us so we can have a British-style dinner on the 25th.