BAH HUMBUG! - It's December again - only two more days to go

Bah Humbug, its 23rd December and now there are only two more days to go.

I suppose it will be a let down once Christmas Day is over. We don't get Boxing Day here - the concept of putting on padded gloves and smacking each other is too much for a hot, humid climate.

Actually, the thought of eating a huge meal is rather ridiculous for the tropics, but I suppose it is tradition and traditions are important, wherever you are. They create a sense of your original home as well as the new home you have chosen.

This year, as I said, I have outsourced many of the functions of cooking the lunch to the supermarket, frozen vegetables and whatever other time saving devices I can conjure up.


Turkey, the bird, not the country. Why do we eat Turkey at Christmas? My father used to detest it, "dry, tasteless meat," he would complain. Well, if you overcook it then it will be dry. I am sure that Jamie Oliver has a recipe somewhere to ensure that all the juices "stay trapped inside".

But I am not interested in a cooking lesson, I want to know why we eat a Turkey and not something else? Strictly speaking, many families eat a great many other things, ham, beef, fish (in you live in Scandinavia), capon (like an humungous chicken), pasta (if you live in Italy) and just vegetables if you are not into meat.

Everyone knows that Scrooge bought Bob Cratchit a turkey (he was going to eat a goose) in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (1843).  Turkeys are just larger birds and if you were a large family in Victorian England, then a turkey for Christmas lunch seemed like the best option.

Turkey was considered a luxury until around 1950s - most families ate goose, like Bob, or swan, or pheasant or even peacocks (hard to imagine that these birds were not considered a luxury!). If you wanted something really splendid then the family roasted a boar and decorated it - they did roam fairly freely in the wild years ago. Many families still eat roast ham along with their turkey.

It is reported that Henry VIII was the first English monarch to eat turkey at Christmas - a tasty bird. Once source I found, mentions that in "1526 William Strickland imported six turkeys from America and sold them for tuppence each." [Why do we eat Turkey on Christmas Day?] A cheap meal at half the price. Well maybe not five hundred years ago! Imagine being the first six people to eat turkey 500 years ago - unless of course Henry VIII bought all six and ate them all. He did like his food.

Edward VII, Queen Victoria's son also liked his turkey at Christmas it is said.

I found a wonderful anecdote from Jonny Wilkes: "Before the introduction of the railways, Norfolk farmers would dip turkey's feet in tar and sand to make 'wellies' for the walk to London, which could take up to two months.

Rather fit turkeys by the end of that walk.

Whatever the reason we gobble the gobblers, if they are free range, they are a good source of low fat protein (and no added sugar or corn syrup) and they free up the other animals, like cows to make the milk and cheese and chickens to lay eggs, and sheep to give us wool and pigs to eat the left overs.

So give a thought for the sacrifice the turkey is making for the good of animal kind as you tuck in to your Christmas lunch.

BAH HUMBUG
Gobble, gobble, gobble.

Read more from these sites:

Why do we eat turkey at Christmas?

British Turkey

Why do we eat turkey dinners?