Lovely reminiscence, Fiona, thank you! Mincemeat, made with real minced meat, is utterly forgotten on this side of the Atlantic. I made it once only, about 50 or 60 years ago in, of all places, Beirut, Lebanon, where it was easy to obtain all the ingredients. The recipe came from the venerable James Beard who had published it in the old Gourmet magazine. I let it sit for the required number of weeks then made it into hand pies. They were not universally successful, being a little too rich and strange for modern palates--even back then in the dark ages.
“Hand-in-wooden spoon” what a lovely turn of phrase you have.
You are spot on, the long preparation of the Christmas pudding is like it’s own advent candle to Christmas Day.
I always associate Christmas pudding with the scene in the Lion the Witch and Wardrobe in which the White Witch and Edmund come across: “a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dog-fox, all on stools round a table.”
The Queen is so disgusted to see them celebrating and eating plum pudding, given to them by Father Christmas that she turns them all (and the pudding!) to stone. (The chapter is Aslan approaches.)
In his essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children", Lewis writes of the food imagery in his books: "I myself like eating and drinking, I put in what I would have liked to read when I was a child and what I still like reading now that I am in my fifties"
Much has been written of the symbolic role of Turkish delight in the story, but clearly Lewis must have felt that plum pudding was the embodiment of finally breaking through from “always winter and never Christmas” to “Christmas is here”.
Lovely reminiscence, Fiona, thank you! Mincemeat, made with real minced meat, is utterly forgotten on this side of the Atlantic. I made it once only, about 50 or 60 years ago in, of all places, Beirut, Lebanon, where it was easy to obtain all the ingredients. The recipe came from the venerable James Beard who had published it in the old Gourmet magazine. I let it sit for the required number of weeks then made it into hand pies. They were not universally successful, being a little too rich and strange for modern palates--even back then in the dark ages.
Separating suet (floury fingers) and de-pipping raisins (warm water for rinsing sticky fingers) - ah yes, I remember it well...
“Hand-in-wooden spoon” what a lovely turn of phrase you have.
You are spot on, the long preparation of the Christmas pudding is like it’s own advent candle to Christmas Day.
I always associate Christmas pudding with the scene in the Lion the Witch and Wardrobe in which the White Witch and Edmund come across: “a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dog-fox, all on stools round a table.”
The Queen is so disgusted to see them celebrating and eating plum pudding, given to them by Father Christmas that she turns them all (and the pudding!) to stone. (The chapter is Aslan approaches.)
In his essay "On Three Ways of Writing for Children", Lewis writes of the food imagery in his books: "I myself like eating and drinking, I put in what I would have liked to read when I was a child and what I still like reading now that I am in my fifties"
Much has been written of the symbolic role of Turkish delight in the story, but clearly Lewis must have felt that plum pudding was the embodiment of finally breaking through from “always winter and never Christmas” to “Christmas is here”.