Every year on the Saturday before Christmas, the Boar’s Head Gaudy is held at Queen’s College Oxford, upholding an ancient college tradition. The meal begins as the boar’s head, served on a silver dish, bedecked with holly, mistletoe, rosemary and bay and carrying an orange in its mouth, is ceremoniously brought into the dining room to the sounds of the Boar’s Head Carol.
Although this particular ceremony is unique to the college, the procession of the boar’s head was frequently part of the Christmas celebrations in royal and aristocratic households. For most people, early Christmas feasts invariably included beef, mutton, brawn, pork, goose, turkey, apples, cheese, nuts and sweetmeats. Whilst roast peacock, elaborately served in its own skin and feathers and a flaming beak was another popular Christmas dish for the wealthy. As was swan which was initially the meat of choice for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They later changed allegiance to turkey and as many other families followed suite the demand for turkeys multiplied. By the end of the 19th century, turkey was the favoured Christmas roast for the middle classes whilst the poor ate beef or goose. Nowadays, for the majority of people, Christmas wouldn’t be complete without the turkey and all its trimmings.
Turkeys have been bred in the UK since about 1550, predominantly in East Anglia. In the early days of turkey farming getting them to markets in time for Christmas meant a long walk to London, or other large cities, wearing sacking or leather shoes to protect their feet during the arduous journey. Geese were taken to market in a similar fashion although they weren’t as keen to wear shoes and had their feet coated in tar instead.
Some of the sweet treats that we now enjoy at Christmas were originally meat based dishes served as part of the main feast. Mince pies, or shred pies as they used to be known, contained beef, suet, rosewater, cinnamon, nutmeg, apples, orange peel, dates and currants. Gradually the meat was omitted from the recipes, although the suet remained, and by the end of the 19th century they had become the pies that we would recognise today.
Christmas pudding started out as a meat based type porridge which also contained wine, spices and dried fruit. Medieval bag puddings more than likely inspired the later cake-like pudding and like mince pies, as the recipe gradually evolved, it became sweet rather than savoury. Nowadays the puddings are usually cooked in spherical tins or basins rather than being tied up in bags. Various other types of spiced cakes and breads have also always been popular at Christmas but it was the Victorians that introduced the iced rich fruit cake as a Christmas speciality.
In fact, Christmas as we know it today, with the customary food, crackers, cards and present giving, is largely a Victorian creation. Although there are echoes of the past, the Victorians are responsible for bringing all the elements together to create what we now think of as traditional Christmas festivities.
© Suzie Banks 2009
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