Twelfth Night Cake

Twelfth Night Cake (aka Rosca de Reyes, Gateau des Rois, King Cake) honors the Three Wise Men who visited the baby Jesus on the 12th day after his birth. This Christian holiday is called Epiphany, Twelfth Night, and Three Kings Day. These festive enriched goods are consumed through Mardi Gras, ending on Ash Wednesday, the commencement of Lent.

The cake is a basic yeast-based brioche filled with dried fruits and nuts. The recipe descends from Ancient Arab recipes. The practice of serving this particular cake, often with a prize or bean inside, around Christmas time predates Christian times. Ancient Romans served a similar item. The traditional King Cake, as we know it today, was made by Christians throughout most of Europe by the Middle Ages. King cakes were introduced to America by European settlers. In places settled by Spanish missionaires (Mexico, South America, Florida, California), rosca de reyes was served. In the United States, the King Cakes of New Orleans are probably the most well known. German/Bavarian Dreikonigskeuchen (recipe here) is encased in a gold paper crown.

"Twelfth-Night Cake. In many countries it was customary to celebrate Ephiphany with a feast on its eve, or Twelfth Night. A central feature of these festivities was a cake in which a bean or token was hidden. He who found it in his piece of cake was named lord of the evening's entertainments and could command guests to do his bidding. In France the cake was known as gateau des rois, or king's cake, in honour of the Wise Men, whose feast Epiphany is; in Louisiana it is "king cake"; in Germany it is Dreikongskuchen; it is the Black Bun in Scotland; in Portugal it is bola-rei; and in Spain it is rosca de reyes."

---The World of Christmas, Gerry Bowler [McClelland & Stewart:Toronto] 2000 (p. 230)

"A long succession of mock kings have ruled over winter holiday merrymaking in Europe. In ancient times they presided over feasts held in honor of the Roman festival of Saturnalia...In the Middle Ages the boy bishop and the Lord of Misrule directed certain Christmas festivities...Twelfth Night celebrations, however, came under the special supervision of another mock ruler: the King of the Bean. In past centuries, the English, French, Spanish, German and Dutch celebrated Twelfth Night, or Epiphany Eve, with a feast. The Twelfth Night cake not only provided dessert, but also helped to facilitate an old custom...While preparing the cake the cook dropped a bean, coin or other small object in to the batter. The man who found the object in his slice of cake was declared "King of the Bean." If a woman received the bean, she became queen and appointed a man as king...The king presided over the rest of the evening's activities...Christmas season mock kings sprouted up regularly in mediveal Europe. Records indicate that in late medieval France thse kings were selected by a kind of edible lottery...In the sixteenth century, ordinary Dutch and German households celebrated Twelfth Night by baking a coin into a cake and acknowledging whoever received the coin in their slice of cake as king of the feast. In the next century, this Twelfth Night custom spread to England, France, and Spain..."

---Encyclopedia of Christmas and New Year's Celebrations, Tanya Gulevich [Omnigraphics:Detroit] 2nd edition, 2003 (p. 404-5)

"King cake. A brioche-style cake made during the Louisiana carnival season, beginning in January and ending at Mardi Gras...By tradition the cake contains a red bean (sometimes covered in gold or silver lear) or a figurine of the baby Jesus. It is sold widely throughout Louisiana...the person who finds the bean or figurine is prmosed good luck. There are various stories as the the origins of ther cake, though most in some way derive from the legend of the Three Kings visiting the infant Jesus in Bethlehem, as described in the New Testament. In the first half of the sixteenth century France commemorated Kings' Day--the twelfth day after Christmas--with a "Twelfth Night cake." A century later King Louis XIV took part in such a feast at which gateau des Rois ("Kings' cake") contained a hidden bean or creamic figure, as it does to this day. Before the Civil War American King cakes often contained gold, diamonds, or valuable instead of beans; after the war, with the end of gala Creole balls in Louisiana, peas, beans, pecans, and coins were used, and in 1871 the tradition of choosing the queen of the Mardi Gras was determined by who drew the prize in the cake...The colors of purple (for justice), green (for faith). And gold (for power) that traditionally tint the cake's icing first appeared in 1872 after the Rex Krewe, a Mardi Gras parade organization, chose those colors to celebrate that year's festival."

Sugarplums

Sugarplums belong to the comfit family, a confection traditionally composed of tiny sugar-coated seeds. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word sugarplum thusly: "A small round or oval sweetmeat, made of boiled sugared and variously flavoured and coloured; a comfit." The earliest mention of this particular food is 1668. The term also has another meaning "Something very pleasing or agreeable; esp. when given as a sop or bribe," which dates to 1608. Did you know? According to the food historians, the word plum in Victorian times referred to raisins or dried currants, not plums as we Americans think of them today. Notes from Alice Ross on Christmas Pudding (aka plum pudding).

"Sugarplums were an early form of boiled sweet. Not acutally made from plums...they were nevertheless roughly the size and shape of plums, and often had little wire stalks' for suspending them from. They came in an assortment of colours and flavours, and frequently, like comfits, had an aniseed, caraway seed, etc. at their centre. The term was in vogue from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, but is now remebered largely thanks to the Sugarplum Fairy, a character in Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet (1892.)"

---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 329)

Visions of sugarplums/Sharon Cohen...history and instructions for making them.

What are comfits?

"Comfit, an archaic English word for an item of confectionery consisting of a seed, or nut coated in several layers of sugar...In England these small, hard sugar sweets were often made with caraway seeds, known for sweetening the breath (hence kissing confits). Up to a dozen coats of syrup were needed before the seeds were satisfactorily encrusted. Comfits were eaten a sweets, and also used in other sweet dishes; for example seed cake was made with caraway comfits rather than loose caraway seeds as in the 19th century. Confectioners as early as the 17th century recognized by varying the proportions of sugar in the syrup they could change the final texture, making pearled comfits or crisp and ragged comfits. The word comfit remained in use in English up until the 20th century: Alice, of Alice in Wonderland, has a box of comfits in her pocket."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 208)

"Comfit making demanded both leisure and special equipment; a ladle, a slice, a basin to heat the sugar suspended from cords over another bowl containing hot coals, and yet another basin in which the seeds, fruits or spices were treated. Molten sugar was ladled over them, and after each application they had to be dried and cooled. Several coats of sugar were needed. Caraways will be fair at twelve coats; and even crisp and ragged comfits, for which the sugar was boiled to a greater height, required eight to ten coats. Fortunately there were professional confectioners in the larger towns. So the gentle woman unequaled to the task of creating her own banqueting fare could purchase it herself, or commission kinsfolk or friends to bring back sweetmeats when they travelled on business."

Christmas pudding (aka plum pudding)

How old is the tradition?

"Christmas pudding, the rich culimation of a long process of development of 'plum puddings' which can be traced back to the early 15th century. The first types were not specifically associated with Christmas. Like early mince pies, they contained meat, of which a token remains in the use of suet. The original form, plum pottage, were made from chopped beef or mutton, onions and perhaps other root vegetables, and dried fruit. As the name suggests, it was a fairly liquid preparation: this was before the invention of the pudding cloth made large puddings feasible. As was usual with such dishes, it was served at the beginning of the meal. When new kinds of dried fruit became available in Britain, first raisins, then prunes in the 16th century, they were added. The name 'plum' refers to a prune; but it soom same to mean any dried fruit. In the 16th century variants were made with white meat...and gradually the meat came to be omitted, to be replaced by suet. The root vegetables disappeared, although even now Christmas pudding often still includes a token carrot...By the 1670s, it was particularly associated with Christmas and called 'Christmas pottage'. The old plum pottage continued to be made into the 18th century, and both versions were still served as a filing first course rather than as a dessert...What currently counts as the traditional Christmas pudding recipe has been more or less established since the 19th century."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2000 (p. 184-5)

"...the name Christmas pudding appears to be a comparatively recent coinage, first recorded in Anthony Trollope's Doctore Thorne (1858). The association of dishes containing mixed dried fruit and spices...with Christmas is a longstanding one, though. Most of them originally contained dried plums, or prunes, but long after these had been replaced by raisins the term plum lingrered on... Nowadays served only at Christmas...this was formerly a common year-round pudding."

---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 76)

"The plum pudding's association with Christmas takes us back to medieval England and the Roman Catholic Chruch's decree that the 'pudding should be made on the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, that it be prepared with thirteen ingredients to represent Christ and the twelve apostles, and that that every family member stir it in turn from east to west to honor the Magi and their supposed journey in that direction.'... Banned by the Puritans in the 1660s for its rich ingredients, the pudding and its customs came back into popularity during the reign of George I. Known sometimes as the Pudding King, George I requested that plum pudding be served as part of his royal feast when he celebrated his first Christmas in England after arriving from Hanover to take the throne in 1714. By 1740, a recipe for 'plum porridge' appeared in Christmas Entertainments. In the Victorian era, Christmas annuals, magazines, and cookbooks celebrated the sanctity of family as much as the sanctity of Jesus' birth, and the tradition of all family members stirring the pudding was often referenced...Poorer families made the riches version of plum pudding that they could afford...Even workhouse inmates anticipated a plum pudding on Christmas Day."

Mincemeat and mince pies

People have been mincing (chopping into tiny pieces) meat and other foods since ancient times. Hash is a related food. Minced meats accomplished many things. It

• Utilized leftover meat
• Stretched the protein supply
• Permitted meat to be incorporated into other dishes, as in mincemeat pie.

According to the food historians, mincemeat pie dates back to Medieval times. At that time, this recipe did, indeed, include meat. It also often contained dried fruits, sugar, and spices, as was the tradition of the day. The distinction between mincemeat and mince was drawn in the mid-nineteenth century when meat began disappearing from the recipe, leaving the fruit, nut, sugar, spice, and suet product we know today. Late 19th century cookbooks contain several recipes for both mincemeat and mince, some containing meat, others not. Some notes on the history of pie. As one might expect, there are several variations on this culinary theme. Yorkshire Stand Pie and Cape Breton Pork Pies are two prime examples.

This is what the food historians have to say:

"Mincemeat. The modern distinction between mince, minced meat and mincemeat, dried fruit mixed with spices, suet, and often some sort of alcohol arose only gradually. Mincemeat originally meant simply minced meat...and we do not have any unequivocable evidence of its being used in its current sense until the mid-nineteenth century. But in the Middle Ages and into Renaissance times and beyond it was commonplace to spice up or eke out meat with dried fruit, and it seems likely that the earliest mincepies contained a generous measure of such raisins, currants, etc. The reduction in meat content was a slow but steady process (still not complete, of course, for the inculsion of beef suet is a remnant of it). The growing need to draw a lexical distinction between the plain minced meat and mincemeat was signalled around 1850 by the introduction of the term mince for the former."

---An A-Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 214)

"Mince pie in Britain, is a miniature round pie, filled with mincemeat: typically a mixture of dried fruits, chopped nuts and apples, suet, spices, and lemon juice, vinegar, or brandy. Although the filling is called mincemeat, it rarely contains meat nowadays. In North America the pie may be larger, to serve several people. The large size is an innovation, for the original forms were almost always small. The earliest type was a small medieval pastry called a chewette, which contained chopped meat of liver, or fish on fast days, mixed with chopped hard-boiled egg and ginger. This might be baked or fried. It became usual to enrich the filling with dried fruit and other sweet ingredients. Already by the 16th century minced or shred pies, as they were then known, had become a Christmas specialty, which they still are. The beef was sometimes partly or wholly replaced by suet from the mid-17th century onwards, and meat had effectively disappeared from mincemeat' on both sides of the Atlantic in the 19th century."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 507) 

[NOTE: here is a recipe for medieval chawettys (chewettes)]

"Mincemeat. Also Mince. A mixture of chopped fruits, spices, suet, and, sometimes meat that is usually baked in a pie crust. The word comes from mincem to chop finely, whose own origins are in the Latin minuere, "to diminish," and once mincemeat referred specifically to a meat that had been minced up, a meaning it has had since the sixteenth century. By the nineteenth century, however, the word referred to a pie of fruit, spices, and suet, only occasionally containing any meat at all. In Colonial America these pies were made in the fall and sometimes frozen throughout winter."

Fruitcake

While the practice of making cakes with dried fruits, honey and nuts may be traced back to ancient times, food historians generally agree that fruitcake (as we know it today) began in the Middle ages. In those days, imported, dried fruits and nuts were very expensive and generally saved for holiday fare. Variations take their name cues from product color: white, golden & black. Japanese Fruit Cake, a favorite of the Southern regional USA, incorporates "exotic" ingredients: coconut and pineapple. What sets fruit cakes apart from their confectionery cousins is being prepared long before they are meant to be enjoyed. Historically, alcohol provided both flavor and natural preservative. Today, that ingredient is no longer necessary and often omitted.

If you are looking for a particular fruit cake recipe (from a specific book, magazine, place or period) let us know. Americans celebrated space missions by making Astronaut fruitcake. Happy to help you track it down! NOTE: Commerical cake recipes are not generally available.

"Fruit cake...a British specialty...The fruit cake as known today cannot date back much beyond the Middle Ages. It was only in the 13th century that dried fruits began to arrive in Britain, from Portugal and the east Mediterranean. Lightly fruited breads were probably more common than anything resembling the modern fruit cake during the Middle Ages. Early versions of the rich fruit cake, such as Scottish Black Bun dating from the Middle Ages, were luxuries for special occasions. Fruit cakes have been used for celebrations since at least the early 18th century when bride cakes and plumb cakes, descended from enriched bread recipes, became cookery standards. The relationship between fruit breads and fruit cakes is obvious in early recipes, such as those given by Eliza Smith [1753] which include yeast...

Making a rich fruit cake in the 18th century was a major undertaking. The ingredients had to be carefully prepared. Fruit was washed, dried, and stoned [taking the pits out] if necessary; sugar, cut from loaves, had to be pounded and sieved; butter washed in water and rinsed in rosewater. Eggs were beaten for a long time, half an hour being commonly directed. Yeast, or barm from fermenting beer, had to be coaxed to life. Finally, the cook had to cope with the temperamental wood-fired baking ovens of that time. No wonder these cakes acquired such mystique..."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 321-322)

Caribbean Black Cake?

Our Caribbean cookery sources offer several recipes for fruitcakes, but only one titled [Jamaican] Black Cake." The recipe's headnote states:

"This is a spin on fruitcake...The name comes from the cake's dark color, due mostly to the burnt-sugar coloring found in Caribbean kitchens. The coloring can be made easily...or purchased at a West Indian grocery. Molasses can be substituted with no loss of flavor, although it will make the cake dark brown, not black. The cake usually is served 2 to 3 days after it has been baked....To make the burnt sugar coloring, caralmelize 1/4 cup granulated sugar in a heavy saucepan. Add 1/4 cup boiling water and remove from the heat. Combine thoroughly. The coloring will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator." 

---A Taste of the Tropics: Traditional and Innovative Cooking From the Pacific & Caribbean, Jay Solomon [Crossing Press:Freedom CA] 1991 (p. 120) [NOTE: If you want the entire recipe from this book let us know, happy to send.]

This recipe presumably descends from European culinary traditions introduced to the region in the 18th century. The ingredients and method are almost identical to English Christmas fruit cake.

What about the oldest fruit cake?

This question falls into the realm of "urban legends." The 2002 edition of the Guinness World Book of Records does not include this category. We scoured the Web and several article databases and found plenty of stories touting fruitcake longevity claims. They are all anecdotal, not documented in a scholarly fashion. One of the classic phrases regarding the longevity of this particular food was coined in 1983 by Russell Baker: "Fruitcake is forever."

"Thirty-four years ago, I inherited the family fruitcake. Fruitcake is the only food durable enough to become a family heirloom. It had been in my grandmother's possession since 1880, and she passed it to a niece in 1933. Surprisingly, the niece, who had always seemed to detest me, left it to me in her will....I would have renounced my inheritance except for the sentiment of the thing, for the family fruitcake was the symbol of our family's roots. When my grandmother inherited it, it was already 86 years old, having been baked by her great-grandfather in 1794 as a Christmas gift for President George Washington. Washington, with his high-flown view of ethical standards for Government workers, sent it back with thanks, explaining that he thought it unseemly for Presidents to accept gifts weighing more than 80 pounds, even though they were only eight inches in diameter...There is no doubt...about the fruitcake's great age. Sawing into it six Christmasses ago, I came across a fragment of a 1794 newspaper with an account of the lynching of a real-estate speculator in New York City."

CHRISTMAS GOOSE

"The goose which the Celts had kept for pleasure were probably of the grey leg variety which has remained the principal domestic goose of Britian." (p. 114)..."Goose was in season twice in its life, a young goose in early summer, and the fattened bird at Michaelmas. (p. 121) 

---Food in Britain: From the Stone Age to the Nineteenth Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991 "The Christmas bird provided by the familiar "goose club" may be compared with the German Martinmas goose. The more luxurious turkey must be relatively an innovation, for that bird seems not to have been introduced into England until the sixteenth century."

---Christmas: Customs and Traditions, Their History and Significance, Clement A. Miles [Dover Publications:New York] 1976 (p. 284)

"The Martinmas or Michaelmas roast goose is actually the perpetuation of the ceremonies of Celtic Samhain or Hallowe'en and Germanic Yule, originally the first day of the New Year, now our 1st November. Van Gennep, writing on French folklore, reminds us that it was a good occasion for feasting on tender geese that had must been fattened. Originally roast goose was a thank-offering for the harvest that had been gathered in, the Erntedankfest or harvest home, a sacrifice first to the spirit of vegetation, the to the gods of Odin and Thor. The goose, ritually eaten, magically ensured the regeneration in the months to come of nature as she went underground for the winter, precisely parallel to the Greek myth of the abduction of Persephone by the lord of the underworld...The great feasts of Samhain-All Saints' and St. Martin's Day on 11th November were thus rituals uniting the assembled company of the living with the spirits of the dead...During the Renaissance the tradition of eating goose on All Saints' Day was still widely observed..."

---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes and Noble Books: New York] 1992 (p. 352-3)

"Feasting on geese has long been a tradition in the Old World, as is clear from ancient mythology. The prevalence of goose gods in numerous cultures attests to the ritual importance of geese and to the fact that these rituals date back to antiquity...The goose feast that came to characterize holiday celebrations in later times arise as a modern-day derivative of these ancient rites and sacrifices. People in Europe, Central Asia, North America, and North Africa customarily sacrified geese, particularly at the turn of the seasons. Like other migratory fowl, geese appeared and diappeared at crucial times in the yearly cycle, so eating them customairly accompanied ceremonial events in the solar and agricultural year. People have linked geese to the changing seasons for so long that originally the goose served as a sacrifice to the spirit of vegetation, in thanks for the harvest. After the goose was ceremonially killed, participants in the sacrifice feasted on its flesh in a ritual that they believed would ensure the regeneration of the Earth...Goose was served at the Celtic Samhain, or Halloween; the Germanic Yule, originally the first day of the new year; and Michaelmas, the ritual feast of the winter solstice. The Michaelmas feast is probably the most famous goose feast, apart from that at Christmas dinner...Turkeys, native to the New World, were more plentiful than geese during the period of early settlement. American settlers served turkey at Thanksgiving, making it the seasonal feast bird. In much of the Western world today, turkeys have replaced geese also at the Christmas feast; but for all practical purposes, these two birds share the same symbolism. Just as the people of the Old World connected geese to the sun, some of the North American tribes connected turkeys to the sun."

---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 105-6)

"Martinmas had once all the customary accompaniments of Christmas, ..but gradually, from the time of the Roman occupation of Europe and its later solistial New Year, the majority of those celebrations were moved forward to the later December date. All Souls' Day and Hallowe'en--a time of falling leaves and fire festivals to help the sun's struggle with darkness--have in most countries similarly moved forward much of their old ritual to the Christmas period...In Germany and elsewhere the goose was the recognized Martinmas dish. And in England, as a large and succulent bird, it took its place for a long time as the most popular Christmas dish...The turkey was a gift from the New World. Spanish ships first brought it back from the Aztecs of Mexico to Spain: thence it would have arrived in the Spanish Netherlands and finally it came to prosper in England's Holland of East Anglia where the great turkey farms were started. It arrived in Spain in 1519; and it is said to have been eaten in England in the third decade of that century, though possibly the bird was then confused with the guinea-fowl. When the guinea-fowl, well known to the ancient Romans and Greeks, was rediscovered by the Portuguese in Africa at the beginnning of the sixteenth century, it came to England dubbed as the Turkie-Henne'."

Christmas cookies

Cakes of all shapes and sizes (including smaller items such as cookies) have been part of festive holiday rituals long before Christmas. Ancient cooks prepared sweet baked goods to mark significant occasions. Many of these recipes and ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, almonds, dried fruits etc.) were introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages. They were highly prized and quickly incorporated into European baked goods. Christmas cookies, as we know them today, trace their roots to these Medieval European recipes. Dutch and German settlers introduced cookie cutters, decorative molds, and festive holiday decorations to America. German lebkuchen (gingerbread) was probably the first cake/cookie traditionally associated with Christmas. Sugar cookie type recipes descended from English traditions. Did you know Animal crackers began as edible ornaments?

"By the 1500s, Christmas cookies had caught on all over Europe. German families baked up pans of Lebkuchen and buttery Spritz cookies. Papparkakor (spicy ginger and black-pepper delights) were favorites in Sweden; the Norwegians made krumkake (thin lemon and cardamom-scented wafers). The earliest Christmas cookies in America came ashore with the Dutch in the early 1600s."

---"America's Best Holiday Cookies," McCall's [magazine], December 1994 (p. 85)

The flood of cheap imported wares form Germany between 1871 and 1906 when the import laws were changed, inundated our Christmas markets with cooking utensils like...cookie cutters...Unlike homemade counterparts, or local tinsmith's wares, these tools depicted highly stylized images, often frawn from secular themes or...with subjects designed specifically to hang on the Christmas tree. Likewise, recipes appeared in popular cookbooks to better match the demands of such utensils...In a sense, with the advent of inexpensive tin cutters, new emphasis was placed on shape, where in the past, many homemade cookies simply had been square or round. Bells, Christmas trees, camels, crimped wares (cutters with zigzag edges), lilies, Sant Clauses, turkeys, all of these elaborate shapes tended to deemphasize texture and flavor."

Christmas Food & Recipes

If you are spending Christmas on the Costa del Sol but still want to enjoy a Christmas lunch on the 25th in a hotel or restaurant, in a typically British or other European style of cooking, this will not be too difficult. But if you are in a small village inland or in one of the towns or cities back from the coast, you will be able to enjoy the local specialities of the season, often including game, lamb and other dishes. Many traditional Andalusian restaurants and bars may be closed on the 25th, so it would be best to find out and book up in advance for a Christmas Eve dinner. It is also important to be aware that the prices charged on this special day of the year for eating out are usually much higher than normal, so if you are on a budget, it is best to check on the expected price while booking.

As regards Christmas decorations, the Nativity Scene is the centre of the Andalusian home, school, church and many commercial establishments - rather than the Christmas tree that many of us are used to from colder countries. However, real and artificial trees are becoming more in evidence now, showing the northern influence once again. Main Andalusian cities, such as Malaga now set up a huge Christmas tree in the main square, the Plaza de la Constitución, where locals and visitors enjoy the festive atmosphere while out shopping and socialising.

On the lead up to Christmas in the shops and supermarkets you will see many of the traditional seasonal foods on display. Particularly popular in the range of packaged sweets are polvorones and mantecados (small sweets/biscuits), marzipan and many different types of turrón (nougat). Normally you will see this on sale in pastlerías (cake shops) as well as in supermarkets and smaller and specialist food shops. The village of Estepa is renoun for the best polvorones.

Most of the polvorones and mantecados are manufactured the village of Estepa, about 100 kilometres from Seville. Although many years ago, these would be made at home, most people now buy them in large boxes of individually wrapped sweets. Traditionally the main ingredients are lard, sugar and flour. From this basic recipe are added different flavours, such as anise, cinnamon and sometimes wine. They are very popular and very much a part of Christmas, but certainly not a particularly good bet for the weight watchers.

The marzipan comes in tempting and dangerously delicious bite-size pieces, in regular and sometimes in moulded shapes for variety. The wonderful turron, or nougat, is another of the representative foods of Christmas and, like the other sweets, it is often placed as the central display of shops and supermarkets on the lead up to the 24th and also right up to King's day on the 6th January, after which you will have to hunt for them or go to special shops to seek them out later in the year. Turron has a fairly long shelf life, so if you really love it, buy some and keep it to enjoy well into the New Year.

If you want to enjoy a typically Andalusian Christmas, you may be able to have your turkey and eat it, so to speak. The main dish in many Andalusian homes is usually'Pavo Navideño' (Christmas Turkey). Although it may not be quite like the roast turkey you make at home, there are many variations on the way it is prepared in Andalusia. Below is just one of the many recipes used.

about of Christmas Food

• A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.
• An old wives' tale says that bread baked on Christmas Eve will never go mouldy.
• At Christmas, Ukrainians prepare a traditional twelve-course meal. A family's youngest child watches through the window for the evening star to appear, a signal that the feast can begin.
• At lavish Christmas feasts in the Middle Ages, swans and peacocks were sometimes served "endored." This meant the flesh was painted with saffron dissolved in melted butter. In addition to their painted flesh, endored birds were served wrapped in their own skin and feathers, which had been removed and set aside prior to roasting.
• Christmas pudding - This was originally a type of porridge called frumenty, but more and more ingredients got added through the years.
• Christmas pudding should be stirred from east to west.
• Christmas pudding was first made as a kind of soup with raisins and wine in it.
• If travelling in France during the Christmas season, it is interesting to note that different dishes and dining traditions reign in popularity in different parts of the country. In south France, for instance, a Christmas loaf (pain calendeau) is cut crosswise and is eaten only after the first part has been given to a poor person. In Brittany, buckwheat cakes and sour cream is the most popular main dish. In Alsace, a roasted goose is the preferred entrée. In Burgundy, turkey and chestnuts are favored. In the Paris region, oysters are the favorite holiday dish, followed by a cake shaped like a Yule log.
• In Armenia, the traditional Christmas Eve meal consists of fried fish, lettuce, and spinach. The meal is traditionally eaten after the Christmas Eve service, in commemoration of the supper eaten by Mary on the evening before Christ's birth.
• In Britain, eating mince pies at Christmas dates back to the 16th century. It is still believed that to eat a mince pie on each of the Twelve Days of Christmas will bring 12 happy months in the year to follow.
• In Victorian England, turkeys were popular for Christmas dinners. Some of the birds were raised in Norfolk, and taken to market in London. To get them to London, the turkeys were supplied with boots made of sacking or leather. The turkeys were walked to market. The boots protected their feet from the frozen mud of the road. Boots were not used for geese: instead, their feet were protected with a covering of tar.
• It is estimated that approximately 400,000 people become sick each year from eating tainted Christmas leftovers.
• It was the custom to eat goose at Christmas until Henry VIII decided to tuck into a turkey. 93 per cent of the population in the UK will eat turkey on Christmas Day; this means 11million turkeys being cooked!
• Mince pies - You should eat mince pies in silence, and make a wish with each one.
• The Christmas turkey first appeared on English tables in the 16th century, but didn't immediately replace the traditional fare of goose, beef or boar's head in the rich households.
• The Christmas turkey was imported to France by the Jesuits and it is still known in some French dialects as a 'Jesuite'.

Christmas Food & Drink

Food and drink have always been part of the Christmas celebrations, as well as the Winter Solstice festivals. One of the oldest traditions at Christmas time is the "wassail bowl". Wassail is a toast comes from the Saxon phrase "wes hal" meaning good health or be whole. It was not uncommon for the wassail bowl to be as big as a cauldron. It was filled with a mixture of cider, brandy, ale, spices and drunk hot. In fact the wassail bowl was hung over a burning Yule log and the contents kept warm in this way. An age-old brew of the wassail bowl is a punch called "Lambswool", made of ale, roasted apples, sugar or honey, eggs cream and pieces of toasted bread. These days our choice of alcohol is wide and varied. Some Christmas favourites are mulled wine and egg nog.

Today the traditional Christmas meal is varied and may include amongst others Roast Ham, Roast Beef, Roast Pork and of course the very popular Roast Turkey. Turkey is a newcomer to the Christmas table and only made their way to Europe from North America in about 1650. Prior to turkey, traditional Christmas fare included roast swan,goose, capons, pheasants and peacocks. Considered a special treat was a roast boar's head decorated with holly and a fruit, usually an apple stuck in its mouth!

Today these roasted meats are usually served with seasonal vegetables and a variety of fruit sauces ranging from apple, prunes and apricots to cranberries however until about 100 years ago one of the best-known Christmas dishes, which accompanied roasted meat was frumenty. Frumenty was a made with grains of wheat, boiled up into a broth added to which were crushed almonds, milk and egg yolks. It was sometimes eaten with honey on Christmas morning but usually as sauce served with mutton or venison. Plum porridge or plum pottage is derived from frumenty and was essentially a thick soup made by boiling up portions of beef or mutton with dried prunes or plums, raisins, currants, bread crumbs and seasoned with spices and wine.

Today's traditional Christmas pudding is derived from frumenty and plum pudding. Christmas pudding (also called plum pudding, although it contains no plums at all) is another Christmas menu newcomer. It is steam-cooked in a cloth, giving it a large round shape. Christmas pudding is traditionally made on "Stir-up Sunday" at the beginning of Advent. To be made correctly the pudding should be stirred from east to west in honour of the three wise men. Each family member should give the pudding a stir and make a secret wish. Traditional mince pies were made with minced meat and were shaped like a crib and were decorated with a tiny pastry baby Jesus. Today mince pies contain a sweet fruit filling.