CHEERING FOR CHRISTMAS

Yes, Christmas comes but once a year, though it comes and stays for a very long time.  Mince pies started appearing in supermarkets in these parts in late September – and of course I bought some.  Why do mince pies have a star on them?  Is it the star of Bethlehem?  Did the wise men come bearing mince pies?  There seems to be no biblical authority for this.

 And t’other day - November 7th to be precise - I was getting on a train at Liverpool Street, and in need of a sandwich I bought a Turkey Feast baguette from an Upper Crust shop.  

I ate it on the train.  I had one of those little fold down tables in front of me, and if I’d been at home I’d have dissected the contents to see exactly what was inside, but that didn’t seem quite right on a crowded train.  So I looked and I tasted and I made my best guesses.  Actually in other circumstances it might have been hard to guess that the sliced meat was turkey, it could have been chicken or even ham.

There was certainly lots of stuffing and I think those flakey bits you see on top are onion but I wouldn’t swear to it.  There were also some leaves.  Working out what else was in the depths was harder.  There was sliced sausage – chipolatas I suppose - and I could taste cranberry sauce. And then I realized there was cheese in there, brie I think, though if they’re going all Xmas I don’t know why they didn’t use stilton.  In fact I don’t know why they didn’t go the whole hog and shove a slice of Christmas pudding in there too.   

I’m not really complaining, or at least only a bit – it went down perfectly well and it all gets mixed up in your stomach anyhow.

Was it festive?  No, not exactly.  Did it seem a bit early in the year for a Christmas sandwich?  I’d say yes, but what do I know?  I tell myself I can eat mince pies any day of the year and when they appeared in the shops in late September I fell upon them eagerly. Now, as we approach mid-November I feel I’ve already had enough to last me a while, possibly to the end of the year – although maybe I’ll get a second wind nearer to Christmas Day. I hope so, though the turkey I could probably do without.

On the other hand, I did just tuck into a Christmas pudding.  Nice packaging 

and a product that looked like an Xmas jelly.

HAVE YOURSELF A MINCING LITTLE CHRISTMAS

I don’t know if the food of Los Angeles is getting more Anglicized – it seems unlikely I know - but I do find it easier to locate English things required for the festive season - such as mincement.  (Admittedly this may be just because I now know where to look.)

The local Vons supermarket stocks Crosse and Blackwell mincemeat, “made with heirloom pippin apples,” though I’m not sure what’s so good about that - it also contains corn syrup and sodium benzoate.  This stuff is a bit thinner than I’d like, and a bit bland, and of course there’s no suet in there, but it’s easy enough to zest it up a bit with brandy and whatnot, all essential stuff since Xmas without mince pies seems like no Xmas at all.  Here are some I made earlier:

But it’s a funny thing about mince pies, however superior your homemade pies are, there’s still a place in the heart for a store-bought factory-made mince pie of the Mr. Kipling variety.  Frankly I’m not sure I need them to be enforcedly merry, let alone exceedingly merry, but I suppose I have to live with that.

And of course, and I know this has been doing the rounds so many of you will have seen it already, there is in England the option of going along to Iceland and buying the Minge Pie.

I mean really, there’s no way in the world that says “mince,” is there?  I blame the typographer, though frankly I don’t blame him (or her) a whole lot. I’m sure when you design packaging for Iceland you need all the subversive fun you can get.

But wait … just when you think the martini can’t get any more abused or bastardized, my English spies send me this from the old country:

 The mince pie martini from Marks and Sparks, who say,   “A delicious festive cocktail, creating all the delicious flavours of mince pie in a glass.  A mixture of raisins, figs, apples, dried plums, cinnamon, lemon peel, dried orange peel, nutmeg and cloves was used to make this delicious celebratory.  Country of origin: France.”  We know the French aren’t always very keen on the English, but do they really hate us so much?