0:00:16 > 0:00:20Christmas dinner. For some of us, it's heaven.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23I think it's the perfect meal. It's absolute heaven to me.
0:00:23 > 0:00:28Conviviality, family, wider society, eating in the middle of winter.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30For others, it's hell.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36The three most depressing words in the English language,
0:00:36 > 0:00:37"all the trimmings."
0:00:37 > 0:00:44Christmas dinner, when we're expected to get together full of the spirit of good cheer,
0:00:44 > 0:00:47stuffing our faces and drinking ourselves into oblivion.
0:00:47 > 0:00:52A time when class, anxiety and bad temper
0:00:52 > 0:00:55all bubble up and spew forth over the dinner table.
0:00:55 > 0:01:01It's in women's DNA to feel totally resentful about the Christmas meal, you know, when they're born.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04- I've never cooked Christmas dinner. - I've never eaten one of these.
0:01:06 > 0:01:12It's one of "these" that is the prima donna in the great drama we call Christmas dinner.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15There is a tremendous amount of theatre with it.
0:01:15 > 0:01:17I think that's good actually.
0:01:17 > 0:01:19Like all great theatrical productions,
0:01:19 > 0:01:23Christmas dinner has its stars, stage managers and script writers.
0:01:23 > 0:01:29And then you begin the process of lubricating the dry bird.
0:01:29 > 0:01:31It's a time just for family.
0:01:31 > 0:01:35It was one of the only occasions, really,
0:01:35 > 0:01:37when the whole family came together.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41That meant that all sorts of obscure cousins and aunts,
0:01:41 > 0:01:45and people that one never saw at any other time of the year.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50Christmas, the one time we let our hair down, put on silly hats and quite literally go crackers.
0:01:50 > 0:01:51Whoa!
0:01:54 > 0:01:56Right, that's me.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08It is the last great feast in the British culinary tradition.
0:02:08 > 0:02:11What do you call a sick crocodile?
0:02:11 > 0:02:15An ILLIGATOR.
0:02:15 > 0:02:19Christmas dinner, a love/hate relationship we have been in for years.
0:02:19 > 0:02:23A feast that unites but also divides.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26Christmas. The festive season.
0:02:26 > 0:02:28Eat, drink and be merry cos tomorrow we snuff it.
0:02:28 > 0:02:30Come on, liven yourself up a bit.
0:02:33 > 0:02:34HE LAUGHS
0:02:36 > 0:02:38At this time of year, one way or another,
0:02:38 > 0:02:41we all end up...stuffed.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57Christmas dinner, when a nation lives on the edge of nervous breakdown.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02The enduring memory of Christmas is my mum peeling the potatoes, you have to peel.
0:03:02 > 0:03:06You always do too much, throwing them like bullets into the water,
0:03:06 > 0:03:08after she'd taken the peel off.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11My sister and I just exchanging glances...
0:03:11 > 0:03:13It's Christmas, Mum.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15Well, I could do without it.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19It may be a holiday for some, but, for me, it's just extra work.
0:03:19 > 0:03:21At this rate I'll never be able to go out.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27There's so many bits to it. I mean, it's kind of like the roast Sunday lunch, you know, 20 times over.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29And you do have to do your timings right.
0:03:29 > 0:03:34I mean, I do my own personal timetable every year.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36It was a military exercise going on.
0:03:36 > 0:03:39In this war, the orders are given,
0:03:39 > 0:03:43the supplies are ready, everyone is in position, let battle commence.
0:03:43 > 0:03:48Roast turkey and veg is not a very difficult meal to do anyway.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51But it's sort of made to seem,
0:03:51 > 0:03:55and probably by people like me, saying this is how you do it,
0:03:55 > 0:03:58you know, at 9.30 you have to put the pudding on to boil, and...
0:03:58 > 0:04:00It makes it too difficult.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04In our home it was my mother who got up, she used to set her alarm,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07she used to work it all out on Christmas Eve.
0:04:07 > 0:04:10What time she had to get the turkey into the oven in time for it to cook,
0:04:10 > 0:04:12because it was always enormous.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16I have memories of her getting up at four or five in the morning to put it in.
0:04:16 > 0:04:19Food writers fill our heads with, "Oh, you've got to put it in muslin,
0:04:19 > 0:04:23"you've to brine it, turn it over, put it on this side, or that side."
0:04:23 > 0:04:26It's more pampered than a baby by the time it comes to the table.
0:04:26 > 0:04:28Actually, it's just a big chicken!
0:04:28 > 0:04:29Put it in the oven and roast it.
0:04:29 > 0:04:34OK, your prize turkey is plucked, basted, stuffed and prepared.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36What could possibly go wrong now?
0:04:36 > 0:04:41One year, we all woke up to find that there's no electricity in the house at all.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44The turkey had been in, and I just heard my mother swear.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47I mean, as if somebody had died. I just heard her shrieking.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50It was like, "There's no electricity, no electricity!"
0:04:50 > 0:04:54My father's going, "Calm down, calm down," and his proposition...
0:04:54 > 0:04:58It's so set that we have to do this a certain way - we were all horrified!
0:04:58 > 0:05:00"We'll have to do it on the barbecue."
0:05:00 > 0:05:03Well, at least it's quick.
0:05:03 > 0:05:07To be honest, if I drop the turkey on the floor and don't tell anybody,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11it's not going to be the end of the world. I am not concerned about it.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15Because I am a competent, confident cook,
0:05:15 > 0:05:19even if I overcook it, I know that the most central thing is not
0:05:19 > 0:05:22that they've come here to give me Michelin stars.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25They're not coming to judge me for my excellence of my cuisine.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29I hope they're coming because they're my family, they love us all,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32and so they come to see us.
0:05:32 > 0:05:36People are inclined to head for a nervous breakdown when they think
0:05:36 > 0:05:38they've got to do Christmas dinner.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40What is it? It's a roast dinner.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43No more complicated than anything else.
0:05:43 > 0:05:47Marguerite Patton was one of the nation's first TV cooks.
0:05:47 > 0:05:51Her sage advice, for over 50 years, has given reassurance
0:05:51 > 0:05:54to those trying to cook that perfect Christmas dinner.
0:05:54 > 0:05:59Don't turn yourself into a martyr and don't get yourself in a state.
0:05:59 > 0:06:05If you think about it, work it out, it's really a very, very simple meal.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Stuffing our faces at Christmas - it's nothing new.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22We've been putting it away in the bleak midwinter for hundreds of years.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25Feasting, as opposed to ordinary dining,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28is always about conspicuous consumption.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31It's about having more than you really need to satisfy your hunger.
0:06:31 > 0:06:36It's about, "Look, eating is not simply a question of getting by."
0:06:36 > 0:06:40It's not just a question of waving a fist at winter starvation,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44it's, "We've got more than we could possibly need, we have an abundance here."
0:06:44 > 0:06:50So whose bright idea was it to have a party in the middle of winter, when it's cold and wet?
0:06:50 > 0:06:54It's really a way of marking the change of seasons and it's something
0:06:54 > 0:06:58that human beings, as long as there's been historical records, have done.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00The Romans did it, the Greeks did it,
0:07:00 > 0:07:05everybody marks this particular change of season,
0:07:05 > 0:07:07and it's got something to do, of course, with the solstice.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11You mark the time when the days begin to get longer.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15Feasting and merry-making has always been about showing off.
0:07:15 > 0:07:17Keeping up with the Joneses.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20Flashing the cash.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24Profusion of food has always been an expression of power
0:07:24 > 0:07:28and of, obviously, wealth and well-to-do-ness.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32That both set out who you were, by how much you could put on your table,
0:07:32 > 0:07:37and also bonded the social bonds of hierarchy, all the way down, and made people pull together.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46It's always been the case that in periods of great feasting,
0:07:46 > 0:07:50Christmas being one of them, the finest food is reserved.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53The best cheeses kept, the finest hams cured,
0:07:53 > 0:07:58the best green goose fattened and the best vegetables kept aside.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02Few of us today share high table with the local lord,
0:08:02 > 0:08:07but even in the most humble semi, we still enjoy the rituals of Christmas feast.
0:08:07 > 0:08:12For a lot of us in our much smaller houses, with the central heating switched up too high,
0:08:12 > 0:08:14it might feel something the opposite of a release,
0:08:14 > 0:08:16it might feel like the tension's really building.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19But at its heart, that's what it's all about.
0:08:19 > 0:08:24Conviviality, family, wider society, eating in the middle of winter.
0:08:24 > 0:08:30The feast element of Christmas lunch is admirable.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33It's what you're feasting on, which,
0:08:33 > 0:08:36I think, leaves an awful lot to be desired.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38But the actual idea of feasts
0:08:38 > 0:08:44and good fellowship and...uh...
0:08:44 > 0:08:51God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and carols and things like that I think are great.
0:08:51 > 0:08:53I'm not sure about crackers.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56Feasting is ritualised.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00It has to have an element of ritual in it or it isn't feasting, it's just pigging out.
0:09:00 > 0:09:07It has to have some content, some sort of rules and regulations, even if they're broken.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11I think it is important that some of the rules and regulations have to do with the menu.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15So follow the wisdom of the ancients.
0:09:15 > 0:09:16Play those party games.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19Drink a little. Find room for that extra helping.
0:09:19 > 0:09:25Wear your silly hats with pride, and reach for the pagan inside of you.
0:09:25 > 0:09:27If you think about the Christmas meal,
0:09:27 > 0:09:29it has no religious significance whatsoever.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32Nothing in it has got anything to do with the birth of Jesus.
0:09:32 > 0:09:37I think, maybe, some people would enjoy it more if they could take the religious element out of it,
0:09:37 > 0:09:41and think about feasting, the food, and think about having a good time.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44I think it's the one day in the year we should be able to eat
0:09:44 > 0:09:48whatever we want and sort of hang the health police. It's feasting.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52I think that denying yourself things is bad for your health, to be honest.
0:09:52 > 0:09:54Happy Christmas, everybody.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57Happy Christmas.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10Chances are, you'll be sitting down to a large plump turkey this Christmas.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14But there's been something of a war going on between the big fella
0:10:14 > 0:10:16and its feisty rival, the goose,
0:10:16 > 0:10:20for a good few years, and the feathers still continue to fly.
0:10:21 > 0:10:24The turkey lacks the flamboyance of the peacock
0:10:24 > 0:10:27and you wouldn't even stuff your duvet with its feathers,
0:10:27 > 0:10:30unlike those of its great enemy, the goose.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33The poor bird has never had a good press.
0:10:33 > 0:10:39Yet, every year, most of us turn to the turkey to be the centrepiece of our Christmas dinner.
0:10:39 > 0:10:41Turkey has been eaten at times of feasting
0:10:41 > 0:10:44since it was introduced in the mid-16th century.
0:10:44 > 0:10:49It was Henry VIII who first introduced turkey at Christmas.
0:10:49 > 0:10:51It substituted for goose.
0:10:51 > 0:10:55This was because turkeys had been imported by the Spaniards from the New World
0:10:55 > 0:10:58and that took off again in mid-Victorian period,
0:10:58 > 0:11:02so what we've got is a colonial bird sitting at the centre of our British table.
0:11:02 > 0:11:07It was the Victorians who elected the turkey to be bird of choice at Christmas.
0:11:07 > 0:11:12And it was one writer, in particular, who puffed up the pretensions of the turkey.
0:11:12 > 0:11:14Well, Mrs Beeton does say, in fact,
0:11:14 > 0:11:17that for a nation of empire, for the middle classes,
0:11:17 > 0:11:19that turkey is the bird for Christmas.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22"A noble dish is a turkey, roast or boiled.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25"A Christmas dinner, with the middle classes of this empire,
0:11:25 > 0:11:29"would scarcely be a Christmas dinner without its turkey.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32"And we can hardly imagine an object of greater envy
0:11:32 > 0:11:36"than is presented by respectable, portly paterfamilias,
0:11:36 > 0:11:40"carving, at the season devoted to good cheer and genial charity,
0:11:40 > 0:11:43"his own fat turkey and carving it well."
0:11:43 > 0:11:48So, turkey is taking over, from the 1860s, as the great, traditional bird,
0:11:48 > 0:11:51carved by the paterfamilias at the head of the table. Very iconic.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57You get Mrs Beeton making it quite clear that
0:11:57 > 0:12:00paterfamilias should be portly first of all,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02and how different that is from our own feelings.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07These days he'd be off to the gym, absolutely no problem about that.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12Also the way in which she knows that her reader may well not actually be
0:12:12 > 0:12:16quite of the class that knows how to carve a turkey instinctively,
0:12:16 > 0:12:18so she needs to provide instructions.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22But those instructions are very, very technical.
0:12:22 > 0:12:28They play on all the kind of middle class skills that we associate with this kind of new body of people,
0:12:28 > 0:12:30these new technocrats of Victorian Britain.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34She could well be describing how to build the Clifton suspension bridge.
0:12:34 > 0:12:39It's got that technical quality that's going to appeal, particularly to her kind of reader.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42When not building bridges or slicing turkeys,
0:12:42 > 0:12:46the Victorians were a sentimental lot and none more so than Charles Dickens.
0:12:46 > 0:12:52A Christmas Carol played a key role in the poultry war between turkey and goose.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55There you are my boy, here's the address, there's the money.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58In A Christmas Carol, the Cratchits initially have a goose,
0:12:58 > 0:13:03but when Scrooge is re-educated, he sends "a turkey as big as a boy."
0:13:03 > 0:13:06The whole point is that turkeys were bigger than geese,
0:13:06 > 0:13:09so there was more food, it was more of a kind of gluttonous exercise.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14But today, not everybody is convinced of the virtues of the turkey,
0:13:14 > 0:13:17especially hardened food critics.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20There's an awful lot of meat on a turkey and not much meat on a goose.
0:13:20 > 0:13:25A goose will feed four adequately and six at a push.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28Turkey just seems to go on forever.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30You eat too much, you feel bloated.
0:13:30 > 0:13:35It comes with the three most depressing words in the English language,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38"all the trimmings."
0:13:38 > 0:13:39Do we get turkey?
0:13:39 > 0:13:43Well, they call it turkey, but not having seen it carved we don't know, do we?
0:13:43 > 0:13:48And if it is, then the one we had on our block last year must have been funny shape.
0:13:48 > 0:13:5028 legs and no breast.
0:13:55 > 0:13:59Like Lulu And The Young Generation.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01That's really good.
0:14:01 > 0:14:07Even free range, community-minded turkeys, which give to charity and have led a good life,
0:14:07 > 0:14:13even they taste too much like a turkey for me to have any enthusiasm about them.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Actually, I think turkey is a much maligned beast.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20It's delicious. If it's not overcooked, it's a very good meat.
0:14:20 > 0:14:25But its main function is to look spectacular.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29Like the main function of a Christmas pud is to come in in flames.
0:14:29 > 0:14:31It's festive, it's like fireworks.
0:14:31 > 0:14:39The turkey gets a bad press, first because of people like my mother who destroyed several turkeys
0:14:39 > 0:14:47in the course of her lifetime, and because it's very easy to cook a turkey badly.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51It's a lot easier to cook a turkey badly than to cook a turkey well.
0:14:51 > 0:14:57One year we had Peking duck, we decided to just have a completely different meal.
0:14:57 > 0:15:00And we all loved it, but the next year we went back to turkey.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03Or sometimes we'd have goose and then we'd go back to turkey.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05So, turkey or goose?
0:15:05 > 0:15:08What's this really about?
0:15:08 > 0:15:12The reason that we eat turkey at Christmas is basically an economic one.
0:15:12 > 0:15:17It's a very large bird that serves a lot of people cheaply.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21Cheaper than goose, which is the next largest bird,
0:15:21 > 0:15:24and so few of us can afford peacocks or swans any more.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29When I got more into food as I got older, I wanted to have goose because I thought that was just
0:15:29 > 0:15:33quite a lot more kind of foody, that was a lot more chic. And they taste better.
0:15:33 > 0:15:40Goose is now found on more and more tables, encouraged by the most matronly of cooks.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Such a splendid thing a goose, isn't it? Wonderful creature.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47I love them and what I love
0:15:47 > 0:15:50is the masses of fat that is left that you can treasure.
0:15:50 > 0:15:55I know, that's right. And even rub on your chest in a case of emergency.
0:15:55 > 0:15:57Rub it on your chest or your boots!
0:15:57 > 0:16:02Turkey or goose. It's also a question of exactly WHERE you are.
0:16:04 > 0:16:10The Gotkin family, who farm at Minsterworth in Gloucestershire, don't buy their Christmas dinner,
0:16:10 > 0:16:14they rear it, a tradition dating back in these parts to the 13th century.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18The main course, although it doesn't know it, has just waddled through the gate.
0:16:20 > 0:16:28Country people still prefer the rich, dark meat of a goose to the more recently fashionable turkey.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32So now that you've dried baby's bottom, are you going to put talcum powder on it?
0:16:32 > 0:16:39I'm going to pat it and prick it and mark it and put it in the oven, baby and me.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41No, I'm going to stuff it!
0:16:41 > 0:16:45I didn't think, we're going to have goose this year because that makes us really fancy,
0:16:45 > 0:16:47I did want to eat the goose instead.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51But I found that when I told others you had goose, I had to be careful,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53because, "Oh, how the other half lives!"
0:16:53 > 0:16:58Now this bird is between nine and ten pounds and it will take 2½ hours.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01Now, we'll open this...
0:17:01 > 0:17:02Hope it'll fit!
0:17:02 > 0:17:05There were years where there were rows about oven space
0:17:05 > 0:17:08because we did a turkey and a goose cos not everybody liked goose.
0:17:08 > 0:17:13And also, goose, the flesh-to-bone ratio isn't great, so there's less meat when you do a goose.
0:17:13 > 0:17:16Although the good thing about that is - there's no leftovers.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19You eat it on Christmas and that's it, you're not making sandwiches.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22No leftovers? What an affront.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25Yet more heresy from the goose cult?
0:17:25 > 0:17:28A turkey-free table may be a blessed relief for many,
0:17:28 > 0:17:32but for some, leftovers are the best bit of the meal.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36My favourite food of all is a sandwich made of leftovers and it's the one thing,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39when the children have gone to bed when they're older,
0:17:39 > 0:17:43when the parents are sitting back and having their whisky or whatever,
0:17:43 > 0:17:48I'll go to the kitchen on my own and make my ideal leftover sandwich.
0:17:48 > 0:17:51And I just... it's absolute heaven to me.
0:17:51 > 0:17:53I love cold cuts.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56I mean cold turkey, cold ham, I mean, what's better?
0:17:56 > 0:17:59I know everyone always complains about leftovers
0:17:59 > 0:18:02but for me at Christmas it's really the best part.
0:18:02 > 0:18:08I like the traditional and incredibly bad for you,
0:18:08 > 0:18:14fattening, unhealthy way of dealing with Christmas pud leftovers which is to slice it up cold,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17tip it in sugar and fry it in butter.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32Now, what do you do with the sacred rituals of Christmas dinner
0:18:32 > 0:18:37if you come from a culture which has no place for turkey and all the trimmings?
0:18:37 > 0:18:40I didn't really know that much about Christmas dinner,
0:18:40 > 0:18:43it was something which was special and protected
0:18:43 > 0:18:46and it wasn't something that we'd been invited to,
0:18:46 > 0:18:47so I knew that there was something.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51But the rituals of the mince pies and the turkey,
0:18:51 > 0:18:56that all felt slightly mysterious and something that was in a club that I wasn't part of.
0:18:56 > 0:18:57- DOORBELL RINGS - Hi!- Hello!
0:18:57 > 0:19:01- Merry Christmas!- Merry Christmas!
0:19:01 > 0:19:03If you're Asian, there isn't just one way
0:19:03 > 0:19:06to be about Christmas, and my family totally ignored Christmas.
0:19:06 > 0:19:09But my best friend who was Sikh and still is Sikh,
0:19:09 > 0:19:14he absolutely loved Christmas and during the whole of the time
0:19:14 > 0:19:17during sixth form and college when I was there, he took it upon
0:19:17 > 0:19:21himself to be in charge of the turkey and he would give me stories about how
0:19:21 > 0:19:24the turkey was going to be huge and he was going to cook it
0:19:24 > 0:19:29and I always felt strange because I thought, why are you so embracing Christmas? You're a Sikh!
0:19:31 > 0:19:32Is the food ready?
0:19:33 > 0:19:38In today's Britain, the relationship between old and new is one of give and take.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41This is what Christmas is all about - sprouts!
0:19:41 > 0:19:45Christmas dinner is being spiced up by our rainbow nation.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48I have friends now for whom Christmas is something which they blend.
0:19:48 > 0:19:53They say, "We'll have a halal turkey, we'll have samosas as well as Brussels sprouts
0:19:53 > 0:19:56"and we'll put a bit of masala dip on the Brussels sprouts."
0:19:56 > 0:20:00So there are different ways, I think, to mix the two now in terms
0:20:00 > 0:20:03of Christmas and the culture you come from.
0:20:03 > 0:20:09Despite our love of tradition, we've always embraced new influences on our national cuisine.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12Talking from a food point of view, as an island we've always been
0:20:12 > 0:20:15very, very open to change and the new.
0:20:15 > 0:20:21As an island with an empire and even before, being invaded a couple of times, we have actually always
0:20:21 > 0:20:25been good at taking on the new and refashioning it for the society that we've been living in.
0:20:25 > 0:20:31But sometimes in this "conversation" some things get lost in translation.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35It's only in the last few years I've found out mince pies don't have mince.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39Because if you never eat them, if you never really are offered that...
0:20:39 > 0:20:43I remember we were going somewhere and someone asked if I wanted one.
0:20:43 > 0:20:48I said, "If it's not halal, I can't." And they said there isn't really any mince in them,
0:20:48 > 0:20:49and it made me feel like an idiot.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53But why would you know that unless you'd had a chance to eat them?
0:20:54 > 0:21:00Now other ways of tasting the world have created a revolution in the way we experience Christmas dinner.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05More people are starting to turn down turkey for Christmas dinner.
0:21:05 > 0:21:11They're Britain's vegetarians and for them, the alternative Christmas meal can be very different.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15On Christmas Day, two million people will be sitting down,
0:21:15 > 0:21:22not to turkey and all the trimmings, but vegetarian delicacies like this cashew nut and mushroom roast.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26The first couple of years that I was in university, we had Christmas dinner
0:21:26 > 0:21:28with the people I was living in the house with.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31Luckily, there were a couple of vegetarians.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33If you're a Muslim, you can't eat meat that's not halal,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36so you become a de facto vegetarian and we had this nut roast.
0:21:36 > 0:21:40How do vegetarians get their protein at Christmas? Nigel.
0:21:40 > 0:21:45We asked the Vegetarian Society to cook us a Christmas dinner and they produced this.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47It's a nut roast with vegetables.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50The cost for six people is £2.
0:21:50 > 0:21:54Protein is provided by combining eggs, breadcrumbs and chestnuts.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56You're dipping into that, what do you think?
0:21:56 > 0:21:59I find it a dull taste, but I'm sure it's the sort of taste
0:21:59 > 0:22:01that you could actually get to like.
0:22:01 > 0:22:03A nut roast seemed like a contradiction in terms,
0:22:03 > 0:22:06it doesn't seem Christmassy to me.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10It felt like a bargain-basement compromise, but at the same time I was sitting around
0:22:10 > 0:22:15a bunch of people and we could all be part of something.
0:22:15 > 0:22:19Yet, there are those that can't help feeling that making the dinner table
0:22:19 > 0:22:22a meat-free zone just isn't Christmas.
0:22:22 > 0:22:26Vegetarians and vegans have a really serious problem at Christmas.
0:22:26 > 0:22:32Not what they eat, but the theatre of how it's presented.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36The real trouble is that no matter how you prepare it,
0:22:36 > 0:22:41no matter how you slice it, even if you make it of brazil nuts,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44a nut roast is not a great big roast bird.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49The whole point of the meal is the ritual and the theatricality of it
0:22:49 > 0:22:54and that, sadly, is something that vegetarians have chosen to forgo.
0:22:54 > 0:22:59Some feel too much choice at the table challenges the very essence of Christmas.
0:22:59 > 0:23:04One now feels absolutely obliged to find out
0:23:04 > 0:23:07what dietary peculiarities are going to come into the house.
0:23:07 > 0:23:12Everyone's got an allergy, everyone has got some sort of fad.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18It does make the idea of ritual much more difficult because
0:23:18 > 0:23:24a feast is about sharing and everyone is eating the same thing.
0:23:24 > 0:23:28Mind you, gluttony of the old school does have its uses.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32Having someone collapse on Christmas Day could ruin the day but it could
0:23:32 > 0:23:36also make the day, especially if it's a very unpopular person.
0:23:36 > 0:23:38SNORING
0:23:51 > 0:23:53- Got your Christmas tree.- Thank you.
0:23:53 > 0:23:55- Is that one all right?- Yes, super.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58# God bless you, merry gentlemen... #
0:23:58 > 0:24:03The sights, smells, sounds of Christmas dinner, surely they've been around since Adam and Eve
0:24:03 > 0:24:08swapped fig leaves for mistletoe and stuffed the first turkey.
0:24:08 > 0:24:14It was the Victorians who established the form and ideas and sort of content even of the Christmas
0:24:14 > 0:24:21that WE now celebrate by taking over some of the traditions from Germany of trees
0:24:21 > 0:24:24and the pagan custom of bringing green stuff into the house.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29And it was Prince Albert who, having wooed Queen Victoria with his Germanic
0:24:29 > 0:24:35good looks and shiny baubles, came to symbolise the strong paterfamilias at the festive table.
0:24:35 > 0:24:40In the mid-1840s, the Illustrated London News prints a picture of Prince Albert
0:24:40 > 0:24:45and Queen Victoria and the beginning of their huge brood
0:24:45 > 0:24:47clustered around the Christmas tree.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
0:24:49 > 0:24:52are the kind of middle-class family par excellence
0:24:52 > 0:24:56and there's a huge appetite for knowing what goes on
0:24:56 > 0:25:03in the Windsor Castle nursery, massive appetite for knowing what a family life should be like.
0:25:03 > 0:25:08Royal Vic and Albert made the Christmas meal a truly family affair.
0:25:08 > 0:25:12The notion of holiday and family and eating and presents,
0:25:12 > 0:25:18all kind of codified around Victoria and Albert's great family Christmas idea
0:25:18 > 0:25:24and it's also, isn't it, when the whole cult of domesticity really takes off
0:25:24 > 0:25:30in Britain, and suburbs are growing and the Englishman's home is his castle?
0:25:30 > 0:25:35Suddenly, people have to travel to be with each other at Christmas, so it becomes special.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40You've also got that very ordinary thing like new lithographic processes and a penny post,
0:25:40 > 0:25:46which means from the mid-1840s it's cheap to send Christmas cards and, of course, those visual images
0:25:46 > 0:25:50that are on the Christmas cards, we wouldn't necessarily recognise them.
0:25:50 > 0:25:55It's not robins and snowmen, often it's kind of idealised family groupings.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58So, again, you get a sense of people are thinking themselves
0:25:58 > 0:26:02into the ideal nuclear Christmas family.
0:26:03 > 0:26:08As the Victorian middle classes gathered around their Christmas trees, swapping cards
0:26:08 > 0:26:11and singing carols, it took the greatest writer of the period
0:26:11 > 0:26:16to introduce the sentiment that the poor also deserved a slap-up meal.
0:26:16 > 0:26:21For Dickens, Christmas dinner was a powerful metaphor highlighting poverty at the time.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28Dickens had an idea of the symbolic importance of Christmas
0:26:28 > 0:26:31and that Christmas above all
0:26:31 > 0:26:35was the time of year when NOBODY must go without.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38CHILDREN CHEER
0:26:38 > 0:26:41"There never was such a goose.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45"Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked.
0:26:45 > 0:26:53"Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration.
0:26:53 > 0:27:00"Eked out by the apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family.
0:27:00 > 0:27:04"Indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight -
0:27:04 > 0:27:08"surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish -
0:27:08 > 0:27:11"they hadn't ate it all at last.
0:27:11 > 0:27:14"Yet everyone had had enough and the youngest Cratchits
0:27:14 > 0:27:18"in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows."
0:27:18 > 0:27:20I've eaten too much!
0:27:20 > 0:27:23And even now we haven't eaten it all!
0:27:23 > 0:27:28What he's talking about is, think what happens at Christmas time
0:27:28 > 0:27:32to the great, great number of people who are in want,
0:27:32 > 0:27:35who are just one meal away from the workhouse.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38Thank you!
0:27:38 > 0:27:46The Cratchits are Dickens' ideal members of society.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49- Goodbye, my darling!- Goodbye, father!
0:27:49 > 0:27:54In a sense because they make the best of what they have.
0:27:54 > 0:28:01But it's pathetic what they have and he admires them intensely
0:28:01 > 0:28:09for insisting on the importance of Christmas,
0:28:09 > 0:28:12the importance of the celebration, of the feast.
0:28:12 > 0:28:17The other key Victorian influence on a Great British Christmas dinner was her again, yes,
0:28:17 > 0:28:23the Nigella of her day, Mrs Beeton, whose book of household management was a bestseller.
0:28:23 > 0:28:27Dickens had made Christmas a family occasion in A Christmas Carol.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32What Mrs Beeton does is extend that, so she harnesses the Christmas meal
0:28:32 > 0:28:36to ideas of Britishness and ideas of the colony as well.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39So she makes the Christmas dinner,
0:28:39 > 0:28:43as it were, the focus point for a whole load of ideas about
0:28:43 > 0:28:46what Britishness means, what the colony means.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48So, let's get this straight.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52We are sitting down to a pagan custom which had a Germanic makeover
0:28:52 > 0:28:57before being transformed into a meal that united a nation.
0:28:57 > 0:28:59Simple, really.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02What it really points to is kind of Victorian genius for thinking up
0:29:02 > 0:29:08things which will just go on and on and on and on.
0:29:08 > 0:29:14Like our railways, bridges and sewers, Christmas dinner seems to be another Victorian creation
0:29:14 > 0:29:16that will outlast us all.
0:29:27 > 0:29:31At Christmas, we can't move for TV chefs and celebrity cooks
0:29:31 > 0:29:36all plying their trade, inspiring us and exasperating us in equal measure.
0:29:36 > 0:29:38Christmas is here and what does it bring?
0:29:38 > 0:29:42Apart from all those family and friends that are going to charge down
0:29:42 > 0:29:44to see you on Christmas Day,
0:29:44 > 0:29:46it brings that main cooking event of the year.
0:29:46 > 0:29:53Hello and welcome to my little series on Christmas know-how.
0:29:53 > 0:29:58As a variant on the ordinary Christmas pudding, I thought it would be a nice treat for the boys
0:29:58 > 0:30:00to make a Christmas pudding ice-cream.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04For TV chefs, Christmas dinner is a hardy perennial,
0:30:04 > 0:30:06coming up every year in need of a fresh pruning.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12It's the only time when all our mates come together in one place to have a boogie!
0:30:12 > 0:30:19Some of us are just so boringly cynical about Christmas but I just love it. Every last twinkling light.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23In the beginning, when everything was black and white,
0:30:23 > 0:30:27the first lady of the studio kitchen was Marguerite Patton.
0:30:27 > 0:30:31Still on hand in her ninth decade with advice about how to deal with that bird.
0:30:33 > 0:30:39Take it out of the oven and pierce it there and see what happens.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43If the juice that flows is pink, it's not quite ready,
0:30:43 > 0:30:46so back again it goes into the oven.
0:30:47 > 0:30:52The person before me on BBC television was called Philip Harben.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55The founding father of TV chefs made the studio a place
0:30:55 > 0:30:59for unusual cooking methods, even when it came to Christmas dinner.
0:30:59 > 0:31:03He was a great experimental person.
0:31:03 > 0:31:07He wanted to find new ways of doing things and on this particular Christmas,
0:31:07 > 0:31:14I can see it as if it were yesterday, he's cooked a turkey in a big, white bread bin
0:31:14 > 0:31:18in simmering water and I was so shocked.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21"Philip," I said, "a turkey has to be brown."
0:31:21 > 0:31:25"It'll be brown later on," he said, "but in doing that I'm making sure
0:31:25 > 0:31:29"it's very, very tender and delicious."
0:31:29 > 0:31:34The first domestic goddess of the small screen found live television a challenge.
0:31:34 > 0:31:41At the end of the 1950s the BBC said, "Marguerite, we're going to have one or two French films so that we can
0:31:41 > 0:31:44"introduce French cookery to the British public."
0:31:44 > 0:31:47"Yes, that sounds interesting."
0:31:47 > 0:31:51"But we want to do a recipe that we can export to France.
0:31:51 > 0:31:56"We think your Christmas pudding will be exactly the thing to do."
0:31:56 > 0:32:01Of course, Marguerite's producers wanted spectacle and drama from her.
0:32:01 > 0:32:03Some things never change.
0:32:03 > 0:32:09What people don't realise is the lights in television studio going back all those years
0:32:09 > 0:32:16were absolutely terrific and while the flame was very good, it really didn't show on the screen very much.
0:32:16 > 0:32:18"Right, Marguerite, put some more brandy on."
0:32:18 > 0:32:20"Right!" Some more brandy went up.
0:32:20 > 0:32:23Lit it again. "Oh, that's not good enough.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25"Put some sugar on, Marguerite."
0:32:25 > 0:32:28"Right!" So I put some sugar on and a bit more brandy.
0:32:28 > 0:32:30We lit it.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34There was a terrific whoosh and it was almost like a bomb going up.
0:32:34 > 0:32:38So what the French thought of the British habit of Christmas pudding
0:32:38 > 0:32:42I've never heard, but I think they must have thought we were idiots!
0:32:42 > 0:32:45As black and white television gave way to colour,
0:32:45 > 0:32:51there appeared a new and brash dominatrix of the television kitchen to shake things up for the nation.
0:32:51 > 0:32:52Fanny Craddock.
0:32:52 > 0:32:57Now when I realised that for over 20 years
0:32:57 > 0:33:03I've been doing Christmas cookery on television, stage and in national newspapers,
0:33:03 > 0:33:08I thought the one constructive thing I could offer
0:33:08 > 0:33:12was a series of items that I've made for Christmas
0:33:12 > 0:33:20and found out over the years the absolutely easiest and most delicious and successful ways of doing them.
0:33:20 > 0:33:27Fanny was no-nonsense and hands-on, but some of her advice was at times a little unfortunate.
0:33:27 > 0:33:32You begin the process of lubricating the dry bird.
0:33:32 > 0:33:35Fanny was vehement that her kitchen was a place of tradition
0:33:35 > 0:33:37where men were the enemy.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41Let's draw breath, let me wipe my hands clean because I want to tackle
0:33:41 > 0:33:44the thing that men infuriate me over most.
0:33:44 > 0:33:49And I want to share with you how French women cope with this thing
0:33:49 > 0:33:51without any interference from the male.
0:33:51 > 0:33:55I'm no Women's Lib, don't think for a moment. I'm not such a clot.
0:33:55 > 0:34:01For Fanny, cooking became a psycho-drama, a convenient substitute for everyday hatred.
0:34:01 > 0:34:06Think of somebody you don't like but you're too well bred to say what you think of them
0:34:06 > 0:34:09so you take it out on the goose.
0:34:09 > 0:34:10And then I call for help...
0:34:10 > 0:34:16With nervous acolytes on hand, Fanny was, for a while, the High Priestess of the TV kitchen.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19Inside the base - it's all right, darling, I can reach. Then...
0:34:19 > 0:34:21But how much more Fanny could we take?
0:34:21 > 0:34:24May I repeat in case I haven't made my point strongly enough?
0:34:24 > 0:34:29Viewers soon became beguiled by a new generation of TV chefs
0:34:29 > 0:34:33showing us the way to a less histrionic Christmas dinner.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37These celebrity chefs were keen to offer their own special take on Christmas dinner.
0:34:37 > 0:34:42Funky ideas to breathe new life into this most traditional of meals.
0:34:42 > 0:34:47And for every cook at home battling with an undercooked turkey and overboiled veg,
0:34:47 > 0:34:52there was a confident and perfectly prepared TV chef on hand with generous helpings of advice.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57It's pudding time and I haven't got time to show you how to make those big, rich plum puddings
0:34:57 > 0:35:00and these days, you can go out and buy a really good one.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03For celebrity chefs, Christmas dinner is the perfect stage.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05All ready to serve!
0:35:05 > 0:35:08Here's Nigella nicely HAMMING it up.
0:35:08 > 0:35:12Put the ham in a pan, cover it with water, let it come to the boil
0:35:12 > 0:35:15and once it boils just chuck out the water, start again.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17This is my lead aroma, red wine.
0:35:17 > 0:35:23I always have a sort of amount of disdain for those wine writers
0:35:23 > 0:35:28who talk about, you know, the blackberry smells and the new car leather and so on, but actually,
0:35:28 > 0:35:34there really is something incredibly aromatic about wine and especially when it's heated.
0:35:34 > 0:35:36And...come with me.
0:35:36 > 0:35:38She's going to be succulent, tasty.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41Now, let's just get her out of the roasting tray.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45Oh, lift her up, pop her on there,
0:35:45 > 0:35:47and we'll leave her to rest for 30 minutes.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51In that time, all the juices will have calmed down inside the actual breast
0:35:51 > 0:35:54and in the legs and it will be really tasty.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57Now a real master class, Gary on sprouts.
0:35:58 > 0:36:03To save time the Brussels sprouts can be cooked in advance and then stored in the fridge until needed.
0:36:03 > 0:36:08Simply peel and score the root of the sprouts to ensure even cooking.
0:36:08 > 0:36:12Plunge into boiling, salted water and cook without a lid.
0:36:12 > 0:36:14These two points are very important.
0:36:14 > 0:36:17They both help keep that beautiful, rich, green colour.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20Return to the boil and cook until tender.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23A medium size sprout will take between six and eight minutes.
0:36:23 > 0:36:28Once cooked, drain and plunge into ice water to immediately stop the cooking process.
0:36:30 > 0:36:35And the knives are out for Jamie, cooking up a storm with his mum.
0:36:35 > 0:36:40Right, I'm letting these steam for a little bit just to cool down a touch
0:36:40 > 0:36:45and because I'm strange, the winglets here you can leave on and the little knuckles here
0:36:45 > 0:36:50you can leave on, but they annoy me, so personally, I lose them because they annoy me.
0:36:50 > 0:36:52So do you usually cook when you come home?
0:36:52 > 0:36:54Do I usually cook? Um, yeah.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57- No!- No, I don't. But...no.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01No, he doesn't. No, he likes to come home and be looked after.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03Mum looks after me. I am a true mummy's boy.
0:37:03 > 0:37:07I love the way these look like rather squished teddy bears' noses
0:37:07 > 0:37:10and I take a perverse pleasure now in massacring them.
0:37:10 > 0:37:13The hype and glamour that TV chefs bring to Christmas dinner is just
0:37:13 > 0:37:18part of a bigger feast that's really more about Mammon than gammon.
0:37:18 > 0:37:19Happy Christmas!
0:37:19 > 0:37:23Christmas has become, obviously, a big commercial opportunity.
0:37:23 > 0:37:27Christmas dinner is something which millions of people know about,
0:37:27 > 0:37:29they share and they enjoy and so, obviously,
0:37:29 > 0:37:32everyone's going to want to have a part of it, so every chef going
0:37:32 > 0:37:36is going to want to have their spin on the Christmas recipe.
0:37:36 > 0:37:42As we stock up to fill the fridge and freezer to bursting, there in the aisles are posters and effigies
0:37:42 > 0:37:49of our favourite chefs, telling us exactly what to buy to make it all a very merry and monied Christmas.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53I think in a way I can sort of see why they're doing it
0:37:53 > 0:37:56because what they're saying is they know there is
0:37:56 > 0:37:59a sitting market there, they know people will spend money
0:37:59 > 0:38:05and they want to know what Gordon or Jamie are going to be doing for Christmas.
0:38:05 > 0:38:09Even the most assertive of TV chefs scrubs up,
0:38:09 > 0:38:13puts on a woolly and gets all soft-focused at Christmas.
0:38:13 > 0:38:18I spent many years eating Christmas pudding because Mum said it was very traditional
0:38:18 > 0:38:23and now that I've grown up and got my own kitchen, I've come up with an exciting alternative.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26Now that's the sort of boy who could sit next to Gran.
0:38:28 > 0:38:33As food critics watch cooks and cookery shows take over the schedules,
0:38:33 > 0:38:36the mood runs from resigned to sceptical.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39One of the cheapest things in the world to do is a cookery programme
0:38:39 > 0:38:43and so there's more and more television about food
0:38:43 > 0:38:47and it's very entertaining and people are interested in it.
0:38:47 > 0:38:49I think it's a spectator sport.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52I don't think many people actually cook from the books
0:38:52 > 0:38:54that are published.
0:38:54 > 0:38:55I don't think many people
0:38:55 > 0:38:59are actually inspired to cook from the television thing.
0:38:59 > 0:39:05I think people watch these programmes as a form of escapist entertainment,
0:39:05 > 0:39:09and if anybody learns about a new dish, they're far more likely
0:39:09 > 0:39:13to order it in a restaurant than they are to attempt it at home.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17Cooking has been turned into a form of light entertainment on TV.
0:39:17 > 0:39:24Famously, the more chefs you have on the telly, the fewer people cook because they're bewitched by
0:39:24 > 0:39:26who the person is.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29Sage and onion stuffing.
0:39:29 > 0:39:35But are cooks on the box guilty of over-complicating a meal that's really just meat and two veg?
0:39:35 > 0:39:42A recent cookery series ironically suggests we've had enough, we want to go back to basics.
0:39:42 > 0:39:45Well, I found that programme very interesting because we got
0:39:45 > 0:39:49four top chefs, who had won the first series of the Great British Menu,
0:39:49 > 0:39:54to cook their favourite Christmas dinner, and they all cooked traditional food.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57All of them except Richard Corrigan had a very sophisticated
0:39:57 > 0:40:04restaurateur's kind of take on it and the public had to vote on them.
0:40:04 > 0:40:08The one chef who just did what you'd do at home was Richard Corrigan
0:40:08 > 0:40:12and that's what the public overwhelmingly voted for.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15There's a new sort of feeling about cookery I think which is going,
0:40:15 > 0:40:20it seems to me on television and in books, it seems to me slightly moving
0:40:20 > 0:40:27away from glitzy TV chef kind of recipes that are frankly far too tricksy for most people
0:40:27 > 0:40:31to be bothered to make and all about showing off and everything being perfect.
0:40:31 > 0:40:37There is a real movement towards, and it's like sourcing your own food and knowing where it comes from,
0:40:37 > 0:40:38towards simplicity.
0:40:48 > 0:40:53Christmas dinner. Surely the one time that we are one nation under the mistletoe.
0:40:54 > 0:41:00The Christmas menu is, in its bare bones, classless
0:41:00 > 0:41:07because it's simply a first course, a big bird and a pudding.
0:41:07 > 0:41:14But on Christmas Day, are we equal or are some of us more equal than others?
0:41:14 > 0:41:21On Christmas Day, more people are eating notionally the same thing
0:41:21 > 0:41:24than they are at any other time of the year.
0:41:24 > 0:41:26CHEERING
0:41:26 > 0:41:32They are partaking of the same communion, it's just that in one church
0:41:32 > 0:41:36they have good oatcakes and in another they've got wafers which stick to your mouth.
0:41:36 > 0:41:40Your bird really is a question of class.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44At first it was just enough that the poor thing ran wild and free.
0:41:44 > 0:41:51While you can buy a 14-pound frozen imported bird for £7, one of these will cost you around £45.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55I think they're happy and it's a fantastic way to rear turkeys, but -
0:41:55 > 0:41:59and they agree with me - but it is an expensive way to rear turkeys.
0:41:59 > 0:42:04If all the turkeys that are consumed over Christmas were reared like this, we'd need an area
0:42:04 > 0:42:07the whole of Yorkshire to do it, which isn't possible.
0:42:08 > 0:42:10But now, can you hear that?
0:42:10 > 0:42:15It's the sound of the organic middle classes on the march.
0:42:18 > 0:42:23The rise in organics and small farmers and farmers' markets
0:42:23 > 0:42:27will gradually, I hope, become a much more universal thing.
0:42:27 > 0:42:32More people will realise that food is not threatening, that's it's easy to learn to cook
0:42:32 > 0:42:35simple things and that the nicest thing you can possibly do
0:42:35 > 0:42:38is get your friends and family round and cook for them.
0:42:38 > 0:42:44The organic movement does allow
0:42:44 > 0:42:47middle class people to differentiate themselves
0:42:47 > 0:42:52more...acutely from people
0:42:52 > 0:42:56who haven't got the same level of education,
0:42:56 > 0:42:57the same level of taste.
0:42:57 > 0:43:00There sort of is a drive by middle class people,
0:43:00 > 0:43:02who are into food, to make it more special.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05And partly that's to do with just being snobbish
0:43:05 > 0:43:07and partly it's to do with taste.
0:43:07 > 0:43:13I'm all for, if you like, the idea of really knowing where your food comes from and possibly paying
0:43:13 > 0:43:18a little bit more for it and honouring it more and treating it better and throwing less away.
0:43:18 > 0:43:22But, of course, it is a class thing in the way that food has always been
0:43:22 > 0:43:24or it's certainly an income thing.
0:43:24 > 0:43:30That if you have the resources, then you can make the choice.
0:43:30 > 0:43:34But is all this angst killing the spirit of Christmas?
0:43:34 > 0:43:37Are we losing our humour in the search for culinary perfection?
0:43:37 > 0:43:42What we should be mostly concerned about is nutritious fresh food
0:43:42 > 0:43:49and it would be good if it came not from too far away because of the sustainability and food miles,
0:43:49 > 0:43:55it would be good if it can support local farmers, but it's not sinful to buy a carrot from Tesco.
0:43:55 > 0:44:00The more of, you know about where this came from and what's gone into it
0:44:00 > 0:44:05and what it was eating in August, they sort of fetishise the items that you're going to eat.
0:44:05 > 0:44:10I'd hate to get to the stage where people are going to have shaken the hand of the uncle of the man,
0:44:10 > 0:44:12that grew the turkey. It's going to be that bad.
0:44:12 > 0:44:17That's the difficulty - that food has to do with fashion and class in Britain.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20It's time for the cake's unveiling. But more important,
0:44:20 > 0:44:22its crowning.
0:44:22 > 0:44:26When you see this, you realise there really is no turning back now.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42No Christmas dinner would be complete without a good desert.
0:44:42 > 0:44:48Whether it's the big daddy, the Christmas pud, a slice or two of cake or the glorious trifle,
0:44:48 > 0:44:52something sweet is the only way to complete the festive meal.
0:44:52 > 0:44:55We've been mad about puddings for years.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58A sweet tooth is something of a great British tradition.
0:44:58 > 0:45:04Christmas pudding divides the world, rather like Marmite, into those who love it and those who don't.
0:45:04 > 0:45:06Puddings and sweets have always been important.
0:45:06 > 0:45:11In Elizabethan times, the sweetmeat or what was called banquet course
0:45:11 > 0:45:18at Christmas was the moment in which the lady of the house could show off her skills in making delicacies.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21It goes way back into the Middle Ages.
0:45:21 > 0:45:27That extraordinary and actually rather north African combination of meat, but we don't put meat into it
0:45:27 > 0:45:31any more, but spices with sugar, with meat, with suet.
0:45:31 > 0:45:37By the 18th century, a great deal of patriotic pride surrounded our puddings.
0:45:37 > 0:45:41Not for us, the fancy creations from across the Channel. No, thank you!
0:45:41 > 0:45:44We demanded that ours were simply boiled and steamed.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46No frills, please, we're British!
0:45:48 > 0:45:55Boiled puddings are quintessentially British. They don't really appear in the same way in other European
0:45:55 > 0:45:59culinary traditions, so it's not just about something
0:45:59 > 0:46:04that we've eaten for hundreds of years, it's also something which is the backbone of Britain.
0:46:04 > 0:46:07There was culinary patriotism involved in Christmas.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10We felt that we did it better than anyone and we probably did.
0:46:12 > 0:46:16Puddings became a tool of propaganda, a device to thumb our noses to a world
0:46:16 > 0:46:19that scoffed at our culinary ways.
0:46:20 > 0:46:25If you think of any Hogarth or Rollinson or any great engraving
0:46:25 > 0:46:30from the 18th century, there are these steaming cannonballs of puddings and, in fact, British people
0:46:30 > 0:46:32in Hogarth start to look like puddings
0:46:32 > 0:46:36with their great stomachs and bulging buttocks and expanding waist.
0:46:36 > 0:46:42The pudding said something staunchly about middle class solidarity.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46In this time of empire, patriotic pudding fever reached its boiling point.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48With a quarter of the globe turned pink,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51the world itself resembled the great British pudding,
0:46:51 > 0:46:54ripe and ready to be consumed for the national good.
0:46:54 > 0:47:00Writers and artists drove the message home, emphasising the importance of pudding
0:47:00 > 0:47:04as a national dish, something which could unite Britain and beyond.
0:47:04 > 0:47:08Mrs Beeton isn't the first person at all to suggest that puddings
0:47:08 > 0:47:12or cakes are important at Christmas, but what she does is codify that.
0:47:12 > 0:47:15She's got three or four recipes for Christmas pudding.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18She's got a plain Christmas pudding in case you're feeling the pinch
0:47:18 > 0:47:23and she's got a Christmas pudding, "very good", in case you're feeling optimistic.
0:47:23 > 0:47:28So within this very capacious book, there's different Christmas puddings
0:47:28 > 0:47:29for the kind of person you are.
0:47:29 > 0:47:37And for Charles Dickens, the serving of pudding was the final act in a glorious Victorian melodrama.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40"Hello, a great deal of steam.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43"The pudding was out of the copper.
0:47:43 > 0:47:48"A smell like washing day, that was the cloth.
0:47:48 > 0:47:51"A smell like an eating house and a pastry cook's next door
0:47:51 > 0:47:55"to each other with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding."
0:47:55 > 0:47:58Put the candles out!
0:47:58 > 0:48:01It's a beautiful, beautiful pudding.
0:48:01 > 0:48:03"In half a minute, Mrs Cratchit entered.
0:48:03 > 0:48:11"Flushed but smiling proudly with the pudding like a speckled cannonball, so hard and firm,
0:48:11 > 0:48:19"blazing in half and half a quart of ignited brandy and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.
0:48:19 > 0:48:22"Oh, a wonderful pudding!"
0:48:22 > 0:48:29In this imperial age, every aspect of the nation could exemplify its power, even its Christmas pudding.
0:48:29 > 0:48:32We, of course, you know, at the height of our imperial
0:48:32 > 0:48:37arrogance did decide that nobody could make a pudding except for us.
0:48:37 > 0:48:42So iconic was the Christmas pudding that it was used in wartime to boost morale.
0:48:42 > 0:48:46It was almost as if however bad Christmas is going to be, however wet
0:48:46 > 0:48:52your boots, however filthy the death around you is, a Christmas pudding will link you back to your family.
0:48:52 > 0:48:54It will also be the taste of home.
0:48:54 > 0:48:56And if pudding played its part on the front line,
0:48:56 > 0:49:01to folks back home it served an equally important role keeping spirits high.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04The ministry was so sensible.
0:49:04 > 0:49:08They didn't say you can't have Christmas pudding because there's a war on.
0:49:08 > 0:49:12They said, "Here you are, here is a Christmas pudding."
0:49:12 > 0:49:18When you cooked them and they were black and looking rich, we all enjoyed them very much indeed.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20The food we made was good.
0:49:20 > 0:49:26It was plain, it had to be because we hadn't the fat or the sugar or anything else
0:49:26 > 0:49:28but it was very, very edible.
0:49:28 > 0:49:33After the war ended and rationing finally gave way to proper shopping in 1954,
0:49:33 > 0:49:37Christmas pudding was back to its blazing former glory.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39You never ate it so good.
0:49:42 > 0:49:48I made in the BBC a Christmas cake, a proper Christmas cake,
0:49:48 > 0:49:54a proper Christmas pudding, proper mincemeat and beautiful mince pies.
0:49:54 > 0:49:56I was so pleased with myself!
0:49:56 > 0:50:02And the viewers wrote in, they had to put a caravan outside to deal with all the requests for the recipes.
0:50:02 > 0:50:08Into a time of plenty, we have kept up with this old friend, loath ever to be parted.
0:50:08 > 0:50:14In the Britain of today, over ten million Christmas puddings are sold in the shops every year.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22- Shall we see who's got the most then?- Mm.
0:50:34 > 0:50:35Find any?
0:50:35 > 0:50:36No, nothing yet.
0:50:36 > 0:50:39Let's see how lucky I am then.
0:50:42 > 0:50:46Tastes really lovely, you can afford it and Dad likes it.
0:50:46 > 0:50:48- Any other reasons? - I've always bought their mincemeats.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51- Ah.- Everybody does, you know, love.
0:50:52 > 0:50:56..As much a part of Christmas as Robertson's mincemeat.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05So, a few top tips from our experts.
0:51:05 > 0:51:13My Christmas pudding is a relatively simple one and traditional one going back over the generations.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17Flour, not much flour, and breadcrumbs.
0:51:17 > 0:51:18Mine's very moist.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29Mashed banana goes in mine. There'll be people who are horrified.
0:51:29 > 0:51:35And a whole grated apple, and I soak all the fruit in Theakston's Old Peculiar
0:51:35 > 0:51:37for 24 hours before I mix it.
0:51:45 > 0:51:50I use melted butter now rather than suet. I like it better.
0:51:50 > 0:51:52Everybody should do Christmas pudding.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56The most difficult thing is getting the stuff. You just mix it.
0:52:05 > 0:52:10- All aboard!- Chocks away! Cheers! - Cheers, darling, happy Christmas!
0:52:18 > 0:52:25Christmas dinner is not only a big meal, it's a story of big numbers and serious money.
0:52:25 > 0:52:31Did you know we consume 19,000 tonnes of turkey each Christmas?
0:52:32 > 0:52:36We spend £42 million just on puddings.
0:52:38 > 0:52:42We eat 175 million mince pies.
0:52:42 > 0:52:44And we consume, on average,
0:52:44 > 0:52:49a gut-busting 7,000 calories eating Christmas dinner alone.
0:52:49 > 0:52:54Faced with all this, might we want to take the strain out of the big feast?
0:52:54 > 0:52:57In a society where convenience is more valued that tradition itself,
0:52:57 > 0:53:02are we prepared any longer to put in the hours for our Christmas dinners?
0:53:02 > 0:53:08Are we about to toy with the kind of microwaved Christmas imagined by novelist Tim Lott?
0:53:08 > 0:53:11"Maureen regards the microwave anxiously.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15"It all seems perfectly straightforward. Too straightforward.
0:53:15 > 0:53:21"Tentatively, she rotates the circular plastic knob and it begins emitting a soft hum.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24"Perhaps it will be OK.
0:53:24 > 0:53:28"Charlie enters the dining room carrying the anaemic-looking bird.
0:53:28 > 0:53:30"He sets it in the middle of the table."
0:53:30 > 0:53:33In all the recent concern about food safety, a lot of attention has been
0:53:33 > 0:53:36focused on microwave ovens. Are they safe?
0:53:36 > 0:53:42"For the slicing, he has an electric carving knife that does much to drown out further conversation.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46"Charlie feels confident about the bird despite its appearance.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49"They have followed the instructions exactly.
0:53:49 > 0:53:52"Robert takes a bite of the turkey first.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54"His expression freezes."
0:53:54 > 0:53:57But the problem is they can also leave cold spots.
0:53:57 > 0:54:01"The strange thing is that alongside the heat there is cold.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03"It is both cooked and uncooked.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06" 'It's horrible,' mutters Maureen."
0:54:09 > 0:54:11LOUD EXPLOSION
0:54:11 > 0:54:16I remember my mother saying, "Do you think we'd actually manage to put it in
0:54:16 > 0:54:20"the microwave this Christmas and I won't have to get up at four to cook it?"
0:54:20 > 0:54:23But she never did. I think we all wanted it to be brown on the top
0:54:23 > 0:54:26and by then we all knew that a microwave was unlikely to do that.
0:54:26 > 0:54:32In this disposable, throwaway world, might we want our turkey delivered in a packet ready to go?
0:54:32 > 0:54:35I'm terrified that it'll get to the stage
0:54:35 > 0:54:39where you don't even actually have to know how to cook a turkey or even a chicken.
0:54:39 > 0:54:43Everybody will get their portion, you just heat it in the microwave.
0:54:43 > 0:54:45I think that would be absolutely awful.
0:54:51 > 0:54:55I think it would take a lot to make me buy a ready Christmas dinner
0:54:55 > 0:54:59in a foil pack, but I see there's a point for them.
0:54:59 > 0:55:02If you live alone and you have no family and you want to treat yourself,
0:55:02 > 0:55:05you're not going to go out and buy a turkey and roast it.
0:55:05 > 0:55:11And if you buy a good ready meal, I'm sure it will be delicious.
0:55:21 > 0:55:26Christmas dinner has come a long way since the Victorians first served it up.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29But our world is not one of Victorian values.
0:55:29 > 0:55:33Divorce rates are rising and we're all leading more separate lives.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36The idea of the family now is so different.
0:55:36 > 0:55:39So the idea of the nuclear family, the kind I come from...
0:55:39 > 0:55:42I think one in three people now lives alone.
0:55:42 > 0:55:46There's nothing more sad than somebody having Christmas dinner
0:55:46 > 0:55:50on their own in front of a telly watching old Only Fools And Horses or whatever.
0:55:50 > 0:55:52Blimey. Even he's had enough!
0:55:52 > 0:55:59I think it would be very regrettable if Christmas lunch were to disappear.
0:55:59 > 0:56:01It's communal, it's collective,
0:56:01 > 0:56:07it's a feast, it's a...fete.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09Fabulous!
0:56:09 > 0:56:15I would say that this is the British trying to pretend that society isn't breaking up.
0:56:15 > 0:56:21That we still have a community, that we still all love each other,
0:56:21 > 0:56:27we want to be together, and we're desperately trying to hold onto that against all the pressures
0:56:27 > 0:56:28that blow us apart.
0:56:30 > 0:56:33So maybe because of who we are now,
0:56:33 > 0:56:36what we have lost,
0:56:36 > 0:56:39the way we live and eat every other day of the year,
0:56:39 > 0:56:42perhaps because of this,
0:56:42 > 0:56:48we cherish the tradition of the great British Christmas dinner that much more.
0:56:50 > 0:56:55Christmas dinner will be the only vestige remaining
0:56:55 > 0:56:59of trad English cooking.
0:56:59 > 0:57:02You think it's been around forever and when people get to know that it wasn't...
0:57:02 > 0:57:07I wouldn't tell people because I'd rather they thought it had always been there
0:57:07 > 0:57:11and they had to keep doing it because I'd hate people to stop cooking it,
0:57:11 > 0:57:12but I think it will go on, actually.
0:57:12 > 0:57:15I can't see this, I can't see this ending.