Eating at Christmas is really a matter of character
Adeline loves eating, a lot and often, both at home and out. Usually that goes well, but sometimes it doesn’t. In the series Sunday Roast, she shares her observations. This week: it’s only over Christmas dinner that you truly show your true character.
Strange but familiar tradition
In October, the most important order of the year is already brought up for the first time. That’s how serious it is. We tell my mother-in-law what her Christmas menu absolutely has to include, instead of letting her decide what she’s going to serve us. We firmly establish the starter and main course; for the rest, she still gets some poetic freedom.
And she certainly takes it, don’t worry about that, which means we sometimes get six or seven courses split between our stomachs. Something about having only yourself to blame, so we should have left it entirely up to her to come up with it. This, too, has by now become a strange but familiar tradition in our family. Which means we eat as little as possible in the days beforehand.
A Rennie on the toilet
That may be why I once slightly brought up the trio of citrus fruits that was our dessert after the third bite, because my body had already been giving very clear signals that full was really starting to mean full. Which I ignored, because a trio of citrus fruits is basically just fruit, and you can always eat fruit. Especially after six courses. So I stacked the trio on top of the six, which was not appreciated.
I have also once taken a Rennie on the toilet between dessert and the cheese board, which I had of course already put in my pocket as a precaution, because I was absolutely-definitely-going-to-make-it through that selection of five cheeses. And to accompany it, I wanted to enjoy a small glass of Port to help it go down.
At the food hook
Christmas is really just a matter of showing character. In the amount you eat, in the number of Christmas walks family members impose on you, in wine, and in who gets the chance to help in the kitchen most often. My other half always wins this one, which means he gets to taste everything first. I suspect my mother-in-law of favoritism here, by the way, which is legitimate because she always cooks what we want to eat.
Stirring alcohol and cream into everything
The previous 374 words were only about eating at my mother-in-law’s house. I have another part of the family where ‘heavy’ is the credo. Alcohol and cream are stirred into everything, and everything is generously breaded, floured and wrapped in pastry. Which means nothing looks light or airy anymore. After that, we get in the car and head to the family who do ‘abundance’, meaning you get lots of everything. Lots beforehand, lots for the main course, lots afterwards, and lots to take home. So you eat a lot too, because otherwise they’ll think you don’t like it, and we don’t want to offend anyone.
Thank goodness I then have another 365 days to let it all settle with my trousers on the food hook.
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