Tell Me about Christmas - Part 1

Transcript

Mulled Wine

So every Boxing Day, we hold a mulled wine party for friends and family in our house. What we do – you go and buy these little sachets of spices you can get in supermarkets, and then in the morning, just get loads and loads of cheap cheap cheap red wine, the cheapest red wine that you can get; and put it in a massive massive sort of soup pot. Put some fruit juice in there, put some chopped-up fruits in there, and then add these spices and add some sugar, and just let it bubble away, let it simmer away over a few hours.

And so in the afternoon, when all the friends come round, we serve it up and it’s a lovely warm drink for a cold December afternoon - very spicy, very Christmasy, and very alcoholic.

Mince Pie

Hello! Today I’m here to talk about mince pies because it’s Christmas time and during Christmas, we love to eat mince pies in the UK. Mince Pies traditionally were actually… they were about this big and quite large and served as a main course. And they used to be filled with a kind of intestine and awful, and maybe some venison. So it was actually a mincemeat pie, and then sort of to sweeten it up, they used to put in sort of fruits.

But now, well actually up from Victorian era, they were changed to be a dessert. And as I am looking at it now, I’m just thinking what kind of fruit is in there. It says raisins and then you’ve got other dried fruits. So British people actually love to eat them at any time though I have to say some people find them a little too sweet which is why this mini size is a perfect size to eat a mince pie, as you can see now.

Christmas Pudding

In my family, we always have Christmas pudding and it’s about that big. And quite often I make it. And I need to make it… if I was a really good housewife or cook, I’d make it six months before Christmas. But I don’t, I usually just make it a few weeks before. It’s really quite easy to make. It’s quick to make. But it takes lots of shopping and lots of weighing. It’s stuffed full of dried fruits and you make it in a pudding basin. And then when you come… To cook it, you have to boil it for a long long time. You steam it in the basin and a really good pudding might steam for about eight hours, at least.

And then when you serve it, you have to switch all the lights off. And you turn it out of the bowl so it’s like a mound. And you pour warmed brandy over it. And as you walk into the darkened room, you light the brandy and it’s flaming blue as you walk in. It looks absolutely fantastic and everybody cheers and claps.

And then in our family, we serve the pudding and we always choose little coins and wrapped them in silver paper and we push them into the pudding before we serve it. So if you are a lucky child, when you eat it, you’ll get a little coin wrapped in silver paper. And my dad used to make sure that all the children got one. He was very clever at serving it.

Turkey Leftovers

As you know, traditionally at Christmas, around Christmas Day, we have a roast lunch which is… the main meat is turkey. Turkey is a big bird and so often there is a lot of turkey left. What do we do with this? Well, in my house, I remember Boxing Day we would have a cold salad with turkey. Then on the 27th  of December, we would have a cold salad with turkey. Then on the 28th, we would have soup with turkey. And if there’s still some turkey left, not my family, but I know quite a few families, they’d make a turkey curry with the leftover. So salad, soup and curry – that’s what we do with our turkey.

Cranberry Sauce

It’s traditional to have cranberry sauce on your turkey at Christmas. It makes turkey tastes more succulent and juicy. Cranberry is a type of red berry and it’s very sour. The Americans and Canadians like it too but apparently their version is more sweet.