A Passion For Food: Christmas (2)

In my experience, clever food is not appreciated at Christmas. It makes the little ones cry and the old ones nervous. JANE GRIGSON

The one exception to the gloom and claustrophobia that settled on our family home - like mould on Mozzarella cheese - was Christmas. Then we did let our hair down slightly - insofar as Methodists ever let their hair down. The catalyst for this sudden explosion of fun and jollity was Auntie Kit, my father's unmarried sister: the pig breeder, chicken fancier and mushroom picker of yesterday's post. She was my favourite aunt (well, I only had two, and the other one I had little to do with), and she had a soft spot for me as well. In the winter months she used to sit open-legged in front of a roaring fire with her voluminous bloomers on full display.Sometimes she'd drop off to sleep in this position then wake with a snort to find her stockings had been singed. Over the course of my regular visits (regular because she owned a fuzzy-screened black-and-white TV and my parents did not), she introduced me to the delights of sloe gin, carrot whisky, giant yorkshire puddings, and bread and dripping. Most of what she cooked in her tiny rustic kitchen involved the heavy use of bubbling pork fat. But it was at Christmas she really came into her own.

At Auntie Kit's legendary parties, cider was drunk and games were played. We pinned the tail on the donkey, tossed balloons into buckets, passed the parcel. There were puzzles, conundrums, and other word games - all of which I tended to win, as most of the other participants were elderly relations with failing memories or inbred cousins somewhat lacking in the IQ department. Then there was the food. For Christmas dinner we'd have turkey with all the trimmings: roasted vegetables, two kinds of stuffing (sage and forcemeat), bread sauce, cranberry sauce, the most delicious gravy. Not forgetting, of course, the brussel sprouts - problematic vegetables for some, but I found their pungent aroma and bitter taste completely irresistible. There was sherry before and wine during the meal - the one time of  year when alcohol was allowed. And in the afternoon, after we'd tired of reading out poems, taking turns on the piano, giggling at mad Uncle Frank who'd fallen asleep with his mouth open, and unwrapping the little extra presents at the bottom of the tree, there was the Christmas tea to look forward to: cold ham and tongue, pork pie, pickles, trifle, jelly, blancmange.

Those days now seem long ago. It was a time of greater innocence, certainly. A time when people made their own fun out of very little.Yet inbetween these oases of happiness, dark clouds permanently lingered over the country fields of my childhood, clouds which would not completely disperse until I reached adolescence and was mature enough to make a bid for my own personal freedom. And food played a part in all this, as it does in so many aspects of our lives ...