WHAT THE DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES EAT AT CHRISTMAS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2693, 24 December 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHAT THE DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES EAT AT CHRISTMAS.

i Everyone is familiar with the viands that go to make up the Christmas dinner or the English-speaking races —the tqrkey, goose, plum-pudding and mince-pie festivals—but many of us kilow what they eat at Christmastide in foreign countries? The Frenchman’s Christinas bill of fare, for instance, is extensive and varied, and in many respects quite different from our own. The great Gallic national dishes are truffled turkey and black puddings, of which every Frenchman who can afford such luxuries makes a very hearty meal at Yfiletide. Then there is a wonderful Strasbourg pie whose constituent parts are truffles and livers of fattened geese—pate de foie gras; boar’s head jelly plentifully stuffed with pistachios; oysters, lobster and crayfish; and last, but by no mean, least, snails and frog legs.. In Russyi the Christma s meal consists largely of two dishes —one of wheat porridge served with honey and the other a chrious compound of stewed pears, apple.?, oranges, grapes and cherries, sweetened with honey and served cold. To this meal the Muscovite sits down with a plentiful supply of vodka at his side. The Austrian affects at Christmastime a delicacy known. as Frauchtbred made of currants, figs, and chopped dates. This constitutes a sort of cakej baked hot, than which there is nothing dearer to the Austrian taste. The piece de resistance is accompanied by chopped carp baked, boiled beef, and -vegetables and beer. Italians, too, are fond of rather s weet and indigestible dishes, especially at Christmas. One of their favorite combinations is that of eels, periwinkles and vermicelli, while the inevitable macaroni and Sphaghetti- form, of course, the principal articles of food at all times. The. German Christmas dinner offers as its principal attraction the goose, without which your true German would feel that he hid not had a real holiday feast. Germans, like Austrians and Italians, have a verv sweet taste, as evidenced by their Mohnpielon—a dish composed of white bread, almonds, raisin, andrpoppy seed stewed in milk. To these they add the honey-cakes of Nuremberg, the Dresden Stollen, and other compounds composed principally of ginger and popper. Another German delicacy, much in favor at Christmas. is carp cooked in beer. Notwithstanding the tendency in all countries to offer huge dinners at Christmas, it would seem that every nation’s holiday bill of fare is becoming simpler with the course of time. An interesting comparison may be. made of the Christmas dinners formerly served in England and in this country with those of to-day, albeit the latter are by no means scanty.

The forebears of modern Englishmen must have possessed magnificent appetites. Their hospitality wa s conducted on a scale, that would make the housekeeper of to-day shudder. Th* >*ieal with which they commenced their Christmas Day, a merg appetiser to :licm, wa R ample enough to rob the modern gourmet of all zest for food for several days. The sideboard of all the old English mansion groaned under its leviuthan round of beef, its corpulent pork-pie, the Yorkshire ham, the brawn and the chine; while on the table itself devilled turkeys’ legs, home-made sausages, cutlet, and kidneys sent up a mingled and grateful incense from an environment of piles of hot buttered toast, new-laid eggs, honey and frumenty.

But this repast, substantial as it was, was trifling as compared with the dinner, that followed not many hours after. The feast was heralded by the boars head; preceded by servitors who blew resounding flourishes on their trumpets. The boar’s head itself was carried, sometimes on a dish of gold or silver, into the banqueting-hall at the head of a stately procession of guests.

Then came the peacock, which was served even more sumptuously than the boar’s head, with its garnishing of rosemary and bays, and its tusks ornamented with large apples. This is how they used to prepare the peacock for the feast: when it had been roasted and dressed with a stuffing of sweet herbs and spices, and basted with the yolks of eggs, it was sewn into its feathers, its beak was gilded, and it was borne to the dining-hall by dames of high degree, accompanied by the strains ministrelsy. As in these times mince pies formed a part of the old English Christmas feast; but the present-day mince pic could not for a moment stand comparison with the article of that period. There has come down to u* a description of such a pie as eaten in the eighteenth century. It consisted of two bushels of flour, twenty pounds c| butter, four geese, two turkeys, three rabbits', four wild dufcks.' three woodcocks, six snipe, four partridges, two neat’s tongues, three curlews, seven blackbirds and six pigeons. Whatever dish might be omitted from the old-time English dinner, no one ever thought of leaving out frumenty and plum porridge. Frumenty 'was made from Wheat bruised in a mortar and seethed until it burst. To this was added clear fresh broth, sweet milk .and the yolks of eggs, all of which were boiled. When it had settled this interesting compound was mixed with fat venison or fresh mutton.

Plum porridge was the ancestor of the plum pudding of our time. Other features of the old-time Christmas dinner included geese, turkeys, capons, pheasautsj sirloins of beef, and •haunches of venison. That these were washed down with gallons of ale and wine goes without saying. Indeed, another story might be written of the liquid element of the old English dinners. The most eloquent tribute to tlie appetite of our forefathers in England lies in the fact that, after “getting away” with a dinner of the character outlined above, it was usual to have wheeled into the drawing-room about midnight a barrel of oysters with pheasants roasted on the side, the whole of which formed an accompaniment to several big bowls of steaming-liot punch I