Feast of goodies online for Xmas

PETER SINCLAIR indulges in some tasty global offerings of yuletide yummies.

Prosit! salud! kanpai! sláinte! skal! Here - at the least - is mud in your eye ...

It's the season of eating too much, drinking too much and having a guilt-free good time.

Jenny Craig can purse her lips as much as she likes - at this season, there is always room for another mince pie.

For puritanism has no place at the Christmas dinner table. The only attitude with which to approach a turkey is one of shameless self-indulgence. Gluttony, followed by sloth, should be the order of the day - other sins are optional.

These days the feasting is global - only the food varies according to climate and culture.

Our Aussie cousins will be tossing another prawn on the barbie as the Japanese nibble on strawberry shortcake topped with a little plastic fir-tree while awaiting the arrival of "Uncle Chimney". In Venezuela, there is hallacas - cornmeal filled with spiced meat and wrapped in banana-leaves.

In Iceland, about as close as you will get to the North Pole, they still celebrate a medieval yule. There, in real Santa weather, it is kjotsupa (mutton soup) followed by a main course of roast rock-ptarmigan simmered in milk and served with whipped cream, which certainly sounds festive.

But ever since the discovery of America, the English-speaking world insists on turkey - gilded and glorious, surrounded by good things and bathed in golden gravy - a vast Dickensian vision of Christmas which you will find online at Woolworths, together with smaller portions like medallions, tenderloins, schnitzels for those readers with fewer than six kids.

And for those who simply cannot be fagged roasting one of these mountains of meat, the smoked turkey buffet from NZ Deli would make an ambrosial alternative: manuka-smoked turkey with mango and hazelnut stuffing - wings and drums removed, but big enough for plenty of leftovers.

Having obtained it, what do you do with it?

I am an unashamed traditionalist here. You cannot just stick a sprig of holly on it and call it Christmas dinner - anything less than the full, burnished, cranberry-glistening production number is unworthy of your bird and of your family.

For this, you must go to England or America, although the Scots also do a canny job with streaky bacon, orange zest and, yes, a thrifty touch of oatmeal in the stuffing.

For the recklessly festive, I also spotted a Brazilian variation with an intriguing dressing involving prunes, peaches, garlic and a bottle of champagne plus toasted manioc, which is another name for - oh no! tapioca. Perhaps not this Christmas ...

Most traditional of all might be the bird that lit up the eyes of Tiny Tim and the Cratchits: roast goose. It's still popular in Eastern Europe and America.

But until Christopher Columbus set sail, Christmas excess always centred around pork.

In those dark, turkey-deprived centuries, roast sucking pig was the dish with which the Romans celebrated the feast of Saturnalia, and it lives on today as the Christmas ham.

No other dish can be carried to such levels of artistry, such Academy Award-winning heights, and it is not hard to do.

Lauraine Jacobs walks you through the whole process at the new Cuisine website - (click on food/step by step), making it look so easy that you wonder why you don't do one every month.

Julie Biuso takes it to the next level, a stunning baked ham with palm sugar and kaffir lime glaze (you can get palm sugar at Asian food stores).

You will find some of the best glazes at the New Zealand Pork Industry Board, including a sensational oriental Christmas ham with plums and fresh ginger. Yum.

But it is a busy time of year and many people will want to buy their ham ready-to-go. You will find plenty, from minis to monsters, at Woolworths and NZ Deli; and there is a glossy, tender-looking, top-of-the-line model for $132 at Gourmet Direct.

Political correctness played no part in the Christmases of my childhood, and I can still remember the wild excitement of a 4-year-old discovering the hidden riches - a sterilised threepenny-bit (later increased to sixpence as inflation took over), which his portion of Christmas pudding was sure to contain. For the record, I never heard of one being swallowed.

Rings, too, sometimes provided a surprise for the unwed.

The arrival of the "pud," holly-crowned in a halo of blue fire and accompanied (at least in Scotland) by a piper, is the high point of any Christmas dinner - more than 40 million people in Britain will find room for some this year.

It originated as a sort of disgusting 14th-century porridge called "frumenty", still eaten in Iceland. But by 1600 it was so full of brandy that the Puritans of 1664 banned it as a "lewd custom, unfit for God-fearing people."

If you want to make your own you are too late. A pudding must mature for a while to be good. Better get back to Woollies and pop a heat'n'serve one in your trolley. Unless, of course, you are a Kiwi through and through - you will find a classic pavlova at cakerecipe.com (only people of low moral fibre put cornflour in a pav).

The completely "stonkered" (a common enough condition towards the end of Christmas dinner) might just nibble on some premium Nelson cherries ordered online from GetDirect.

Those with any corners left to fill can let their belts out another notch for Santa's favourite recipes.

Well, maybe I can squeeze in just one more snickerdoodle after all ...

Looking back at my first sentence, I think Tiny Tim's is probably still the best toast of all: "God bless us, every one ... "

Links


Old Japanese Christmas

Hallacas recipe

Christmas in Iceland

Woolworths

NZ Deli

Traditional Roast Turkey (England)

Traditional Roast Turkey (America)

Scottish Christmas Turkey

Brazilian Christmas Turkey

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Roast Goose recipe

Roast Sucking Pig

Saturnalia

Cuisine

New Zealand Pork Industry Board

Gourmet Direct

Frumenty

Christmas Puddings

Pavlova recipe

GetDirect

Santa's favourite recipes