12 days of Christmas – any nuts left?
This is the time of year when people eat things they would never normally consider consuming. Honest to god, if you put me in charge of a trolly and send me round a supermarket on a normal shop, I can do it in half and hour on autopilot, the only moment of real choice coming when I face the drinks aisle and wonder what’s on special or think about trying some exciting new east European breakfast lager.
At Christmas though, people buy stuff they would never normally eat – to be precise: vegetables. That’s why you see baffled men holding up phallic root crops wondering if it really is okay to serve that up to Aunt Irene or whether it will simply bring on one of her ‘turns’ and why you see women buying packs of sausage meat and spices and stuffing mix – instead of a pack of ready made stuffing.
Much is made of people suffering for long hours in the kitchen over Christmas, slaving over a stove stirring vegetables that go from firm as pebbles to mush in an instant, throwing out more steam than a laundry, an industrial cooling tower and a 01B482 Class 7 loco combined.
In truth, the kitchen is not a bad place to be over Christmas. For foodies it’s where they can practice their art and relax, for harassed hosts it’s a place with unlimited access to cooking sherry.
As for the nuts – throughout the year the decision is normally ‘salted or dry roasted?’ – at Christmas we’re confronted with the real thing and, the arch-nut…the walnut, in shell. This is the king of nuts for two reasons – to get at it requires effort disproportionate to what is revealed inside (eating a walnut usually makes you think ‘great – so where’s the chocolate and fondant?’) and watching somebody try to open one allows you to pick your time to say…’you know, squirrels can open one of those in about three seconds’, leaving the inference hanging until answered with ‘well why don’t you go and fucking well fetch one instead of these crap nutcrackers!’.
The real purpose of a walnut, shell on, is to allow Aunt Irene to do her party trick – thighs of steel that woman.
At Christmas though, people buy stuff they would never normally eat – to be precise: vegetables. That’s why you see baffled men holding up phallic root crops wondering if it really is okay to serve that up to Aunt Irene or whether it will simply bring on one of her ‘turns’ and why you see women buying packs of sausage meat and spices and stuffing mix – instead of a pack of ready made stuffing.
Much is made of people suffering for long hours in the kitchen over Christmas, slaving over a stove stirring vegetables that go from firm as pebbles to mush in an instant, throwing out more steam than a laundry, an industrial cooling tower and a 01B482 Class 7 loco combined.
In truth, the kitchen is not a bad place to be over Christmas. For foodies it’s where they can practice their art and relax, for harassed hosts it’s a place with unlimited access to cooking sherry.
As for the nuts – throughout the year the decision is normally ‘salted or dry roasted?’ – at Christmas we’re confronted with the real thing and, the arch-nut…the walnut, in shell. This is the king of nuts for two reasons – to get at it requires effort disproportionate to what is revealed inside (eating a walnut usually makes you think ‘great – so where’s the chocolate and fondant?’) and watching somebody try to open one allows you to pick your time to say…’you know, squirrels can open one of those in about three seconds’, leaving the inference hanging until answered with ‘well why don’t you go and fucking well fetch one instead of these crap nutcrackers!’.
The real purpose of a walnut, shell on, is to allow Aunt Irene to do her party trick – thighs of steel that woman.
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