‘Tis the season of copious consumption of culinary treats. Of the many Christmas titles available in Special Collections, scarcely one of them fails to call attention to the feast. Any one of the 58 different editions of Charles Dickenss Christmas Carol result with Mr. Scrooge exclaiming, “Heres the turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!”1 Contrary to popularized versions of the tale, it was a turkey that Mr. Scrooge sent to the Cratchits and not a gooseturkey being an “exotic” New World treat unlike the omnipresent English geese.2
Aside from the large birds, here are a few more Christmas dinners, traditional and otherwise, to ponder:
Credited with reviving the Christmas tradition in the United States, American author, Washington Irving (1783-1859) wrote his first series of stories about the celebration of Christmas in an English manor house in 1819.3 Later stories, including Old Christmas which first appeared in 1876, make use of the notebooks he kept while travelling in the English countryside. Ancient English custom for stately entertainments, he tells us, traditionally called for a peacock pie crowned with the birds plumed head and gilded beak on one side of the dish and the tail plumage accented the back.4 In Irvings tale, however, the Squire reluctantly confesses to his guests that this marvelous dish commanding the table was in fact pheasant pie. It seems that he could not “prevail upon himself” to have one of his peacocks killed.
Also along traditional lines, The Book of Christmas by Thomas K. Hervey describes the staple of Christmas plum pudding complete with hackin.5 Hackin is mince-meat of any kind,” but Christmas mince-meat, everybody knows, means a composition of meat and suet, (hacked small,) seasoned with fruit and spices.” The author notes that the ancient hackin “must be boiled by day-break, or, else, two young men must take the maiden [i.e. the cook] by the arms, and run her round the marketplace, till she is ashamed of her laziness.”
But why the extreme disciplinary measures for a lazy cook? According to Mrs. Beeton’s, Book of Household Management (1880), the Christmas plum pudding consisting of 1 lb. raisins, lb. currants, lb. mixed peel, lb. bread-crumbs, lb. suet, 8 eggs, and 1 wineglassful brandy requires five or six hours of boiling in a cloth without a mold and another two hours of cooking on the day it is served.6 Pudding was a serious undertaking.
Other stories recount how one might make due when circumstances will not permit all the traditional holiday fare, such as Rockwell Kents, Northern Christmas.7 In 1918, the American artist and his eight-year-old son were at the remote Fox Island in Alaska over the holiday. Despite the circumstances, they kept the holiday spirit alive and dined with Old Swede Olson, a pioneering gold miner and trapper, two foxes and a herd of goats. The menu for their makeshift feast, however, is remarkable given the location. It consisted of olives, pickles, spaghetti a la Fox Island, beans a la Resurrection Bay, murphies en casserole (murphies being an Irish or white potato), cranberry sauce, plum pudding magnifique, sauce a la Alaska rum, demi tasse, nuts, raisins, bon-bons, and Home Sweet Home cider.
In a similar vein, Owen Wistler’s, A Journey in Search of Christmas(1904), tells the tale of Mr. McLean, Shorty, Chalkeye, and Dollar Bill, four cow-punchers who arrive in urban Denver after riding trail for twelve weeks. Despite feeling out-of-place in the city, they note that “Denver knows better neighborhoods; but the turkey and the oyster-stew were there, with catsup and vegetables in season, and several choices of pie.”8
Whatever your menu, we wish you visions of sugar plums and a well fed holiday season.
For more information on these or any of our other Christmas titles, please contact Special Collections and Archives, Room 314 (archives@depaul.edu).
1 Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol / with a special introduction by A. Edward Newton ; illustrations by John Leech. Boston : Little, Brown, c1920. SpCD 823D548c1920)
2 http://www.foodtimeline.org/christmasfood.html#goose
3 http://www.thehistoryofchristmas.com/ch/in_america.htm
4 Irving, Washington. Old Christmas and Bracebridge Hall. Illus. Ralph Caldecott. London: Macmillan and Co., 1886. SpC. 817 I72o1886
5 Hervey, Thomas Kibble. The Book of Christmas / with illustrations by R. Seymour. London : William Spooner …, 1836. SpC. 394.2663 H579b1836
6 Beeton, Mrs. The Book of Household Management London : Ward, Lock, 1880. SpC640B415b1880
7 Kent, Rockwell. A Northern Christmas, being the story of a peaceful Christmas in the remote and peaceful wilderness of an Alaskan island. American artists group gift books, no. 1 New York, American artists group [c1941]. SPC. 769.92 K37N
8 Wister, Owen. A Journey in Search of Christmas / illustrated by Frederic Remington. New York, London, Harper & Brothers, 1904. SPC. 813.5 W817J190