Cooking for Christmas 1962

Posted on 16 December 2022 by Michael Regan

My sister and I have the same reaction when anyone mentions cooking like their Mum–we shudder. Our mother honed her cooking skills growing up in Whitechapel, a London ghetto in the country that gave the world mushy peas. Ten years in Canada had done nothing to improve them.

Preparation for Christmas started weeks in advance. My mother had found a recipe for making chocolates using a mashed potato base. A few, with a maraschino cherry centre, were edible. The rest, made into peppermint patties, had all the appeal of a bowl of peppermint flavoured mashed potatoes. However, they were sweet and my sister and I ate them. Wasting food was the biggest sin we could commit.

My mum managed to get the plum pudding right. Made a few weeks before Christmas, the kitchen would smell of mace, cinnamon, cloves and brandy. My sister and I would help chop up the suet, stirring the mixture three times, for luck. A dab of the batter for ‘tasties’ was our reward for helping.

Early on the big day, she would get out her cast iron frying pan and throw in a pound or two of bacon. Real bacon, not the water infused stuff that you get in the supermarket today. After the bacon was cooked, there would be a quarter inch or more of hot fat left in the pan into which the eggs were cracked. They would sizzle and pop as they hit the fat. Hot fat spooned over top and they were ready to serve. Any fat left over could be used to fry up some bread for a midday snack.

After breakfast a plate of snacks would be put on the table, an assortment of chips, dip, pickles and crackers. There was also my father’s contribution to the feast–a tin of smoked oysters and a tin of frog’s legs. Or, as my sister and I called them, pencil erasers and Yuck.

As we played with our toys, mum would be In the kitchen working on the stuffing. She had saved a bag of bread crumbs for the stuffing. A mixture of bread crumbs, celery, onions, and sage was stuffed into the turkey. Salmonella wasn’t in anyone’s vocabulary back then. The turkey was ready for the oven.

To my mum, a turkey was just an oversized goose, and she cooked it accordingly. This resulted in a turkey drier than the Sahara. 

By six o’clock, the turkey had been out of the oven for an hour and ready to carve, the carrots and Brussel sprouts cooked almost to mush, the canned cranberry jelly sat like a gelatinous log on a small plate, Bisto and turkey drippings combined to make a gravy that would make the turkey palatable and the roast potatoes, done to perfection.

After dinner, Mum would bring out the plum pudding sprinkled with sugar. Dad would pour a generous amount of brandy over the top and light it. Then Mum would serve it with a dallop of whipped cream and we would all say it was the best Christmas dinner ever.

My sister and I have the same reaction when anyone mentions cooking like their Mum–we shudder. Our mother honed her cooking skills growing up in Whitechapel, a London ghetto in the country that gave the world mushy peas. Ten years in Canada had done nothing to improve them.

Preparation for Christmas started weeks in advance. My mother had found a recipe for making chocolates using a mashed potato base. A few, with a maraschino cherry centre, were edible. The rest, made into peppermint patties, had all the appeal of a bowl of peppermint flavoured mashed potatoes. However, they were sweet and my sister and I ate them. Wasting food was the biggest sin we could commit.

My mum managed to get the plum pudding right. Made a few weeks before Christmas, the kitchen would smell of mace, cinnamon, cloves and brandy. My sister and I would help chop up the suet, stirring the mixture three times, for luck. A dab of the batter for ‘tasties’ was our reward for helping.

Early on the big day, she would get out her cast iron frying pan and throw in a pound or two of bacon. Real bacon, not the water infused stuff that you get in the supermarket today. After the bacon was cooked, there would be a quarter inch or more of hot fat left in the pan into which the eggs were cracked. They would sizzle and pop as they hit the fat. Hot fat spooned over top and they were ready to serve. Any fat left over could be used to fry up some bread for a midday snack.

After breakfast, a plate of snacks would be put on the table, an assortment of chips, dip, pickles and crackers. There was also my father’s contribution to the feast–a tin of smoked oysters and a tin of frog’s legs. Or, as my sister and I called them, pencil erasers and Yuck.

As we played with our toys, mum would be In the kitchen working on the stuffing. She had saved a bag of bread crumbs for the stuffing. A mixture of bread crumbs, celery, onions, and sage was stuffed into the turkey. Salmonella wasn’t in anyone’s vocabulary back then. The turkey was ready for the oven.

To my mum, a turkey was just an oversized goose, and she cooked it accordingly. This resulted in a turkey drier than the Sahara. 

By six o’clock, the turkey had been out of the oven for an hour and ready to carve, the carrots and Brussel sprouts cooked almost to mush, the canned cranberry jelly sat like a gelatinous log on a small plate, Bisto and turkey drippings combined to make a gravy that would make the turkey palatable and the roast potatoes, done to perfection.

After dinner, Mum would bring out the plum pudding sprinkled with sugar. Dad would pour a generous amount of brandy over the top and light it. Then Mum would serve it with a dollop of whipped cream and we would all say it was the best Christmas dinner ever.

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