FOOD & DRINK
The Echo of Christmas Traditions
Today’s Christmas traditions may seem as old and authentic as they come, but are actually a patchwork of numerous cen- turies and countries’ customs woven to- gether with a good dose of Christmas spirit. Some rituals have survived for mil- lennia, while others, such as serving a pea- cock for Christmas and dating from 1430, have fallen from fashion.
Some customs are so well established that we follow them without any hesitation. Today a Christmas wreath is a common decorative item during the season, but the wreath on your front door is a remnant of the ancient pagan practice of bringing evergreen foliage into the home symbolis- ing everlasting life and renewal at the darkest time of the year. Pagan rituals of mid-winter often featured a wreath of evergreen with four candles. The candles were placed in each of the four directions, representing the elements of earth, wind,
water and fire, with the shape of the wreath being symbolic of the continuance of the circle of life. The early Christians re- appropriated the existing Pagan mid-win- ter festival, deciding that it should instead
“A medieval Christmas lasted for 12 days, and
New Year’s Day and Twelfth Night were just as important as 25 December.
”
celebrate Jesus’s birthday and we find the advent wreath is created with four can- dles.
It is true to say that when someone men- tions Christmas dinner it is hard not to think of turkey and all the trimmings, al-
though this is a relatively new tradition in the history of Christmas celebrations. A medieval Christmas lasted for 12 days, and New Year’s Day and Twelfth Night were just as important as December 25th. Christmas Eve was a day of fast and Christmas Day was the first day of feast- ing and a real celebration. A medieval Christmas feast would have been a splen- did affair to behold, but perhaps a little daunting for the digestive system. For King Henry V it included dates, carp, eels roasted with lamprey, and a leach milk jelly. This 15th century feast concluded with vi- sually alluring sugar sculptures known as sotiltees or subtleties.
So why, with a Christmas culinary history that includes peacocks and roasted eels, do we eat turkey for Christmas? Yorkshireman, William Strickland, intro- duced turkeys into the UK more than 500 years ago after acquiring six birds from
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