Guest blogger - Merry Christmas from the cook
Christmas – a time of good food, good cheer, letting out the belt one more notch and trying out novelty hangover cures in the desperate hope that something, anything, will work, even if it involves using half a bottle of very-out-of-date tabasco.
The big event at the big house is the Christmas Feast on Boxing Day. Looking round at the kitchen following the Christmas Feast at the big house, one cannot help but feel an odd combination of pride and disquiet.
The Christmas Feast is not exactly what one would call a comfortable environment for vegetarians, or nutters as they are known locally, as the remains of the carcasses (or ‘off cuts’) of various beasts lay strewn about the place, and cauldrons, pots, pans, glazing tins, scrapers, prongs, tongs, prodders, pokers, chafing dishes, warming pans, peelings, leavings, doings, makings, letfovers, plates, side plates, adjacent plates, ladles, bowls, and platters lie variously stacked, scattered and slumped around the place.
The atmosphere though can be said to be one of mellow contentment as the kitchen staff rest in the knowledge that the guests have just consumed the last course and there is nothing more to do for the next two hours, when a cold buffet and sandwich platters have to be prepared, and I as head cook have no chore other than drink an entire bottle of cooking sherry and reflect on a job well done.
Christmas is always a very big occasion at the house and hence requires a great deal of preparation in the kitchen. Luckily the Master does not believe in vegetarianism or any other form of faddy eating, to the extent that he simply refuses to acknowledge their existence. Thus he has decreed that the only ‘special request’ that may be made of the kitchen is for second helpings, which eases things tremendously.
This still leaves a huge amount of work to be done, not just in the securing of the produce, including those things only ever consumed at Christmas, like sprouts, Christmas pudding or emu, but ensuring that the various pots, vats and cauldrons necessary are all ready for us and not, as was discovered one Christmas, being used by the second under-gardener to distil his illegal (though delicious) holly berry gin.
And of course one has to set the traps. It’s all very well for a house guest to think it terribly amusing to wander down into the kitchen in the wee small hours and help himself to something tasty from the fridge in the form of a midnight snack, but that can also be described as a pissed up pest helping themselves to the last of the brandy cream to be had in three counties in the mistaken belief it’s very soft cheese. Nothing discourages midnight snacking quite like an enraged badger being launched by a small compressed-air catapult across a room at a now screaming reveller who has just activated a pressure sensor at the kitchen door.
Luckily, as well as the vegetables coming from the kitchen garden and the more ‘exotic’ herbs from the greenhouse, the Master insists that the Feast consist as much as possible of animals killed on the estate. Unfortunately, given the Gamekeeper’s drinking, perverse sense of humour and almost psychopathic hatred of any animal that might either dig a flower bed, give another animal TB or go through his bins, this has meant scouring the internet for festive recipes for fox, badger and, on one desperate occasion, rambler.
The Christmas feast is, by tradition, twelve courses, all of them featuring some sort of meat – something of a challenge when it comes to the cheese platter but the sort of challenge I relish, which coincidently also forms part of the cheese platter. It would take too long, and probably be incriminating, to describe all the dishes in full, but suffice to say that this year not only were guests required to use the usual assortment of knives, forks and spoons, but also had to employ a small lance for one course, a tiny fishing rod for the fish course described as ‘so fresh it’s frisky’ and, the most talked about cutlery of the night; the table trebuchet.
Happy eating and Happy New Year
The big event at the big house is the Christmas Feast on Boxing Day. Looking round at the kitchen following the Christmas Feast at the big house, one cannot help but feel an odd combination of pride and disquiet.
The Christmas Feast is not exactly what one would call a comfortable environment for vegetarians, or nutters as they are known locally, as the remains of the carcasses (or ‘off cuts’) of various beasts lay strewn about the place, and cauldrons, pots, pans, glazing tins, scrapers, prongs, tongs, prodders, pokers, chafing dishes, warming pans, peelings, leavings, doings, makings, letfovers, plates, side plates, adjacent plates, ladles, bowls, and platters lie variously stacked, scattered and slumped around the place.
The atmosphere though can be said to be one of mellow contentment as the kitchen staff rest in the knowledge that the guests have just consumed the last course and there is nothing more to do for the next two hours, when a cold buffet and sandwich platters have to be prepared, and I as head cook have no chore other than drink an entire bottle of cooking sherry and reflect on a job well done.
Christmas is always a very big occasion at the house and hence requires a great deal of preparation in the kitchen. Luckily the Master does not believe in vegetarianism or any other form of faddy eating, to the extent that he simply refuses to acknowledge their existence. Thus he has decreed that the only ‘special request’ that may be made of the kitchen is for second helpings, which eases things tremendously.
This still leaves a huge amount of work to be done, not just in the securing of the produce, including those things only ever consumed at Christmas, like sprouts, Christmas pudding or emu, but ensuring that the various pots, vats and cauldrons necessary are all ready for us and not, as was discovered one Christmas, being used by the second under-gardener to distil his illegal (though delicious) holly berry gin.
And of course one has to set the traps. It’s all very well for a house guest to think it terribly amusing to wander down into the kitchen in the wee small hours and help himself to something tasty from the fridge in the form of a midnight snack, but that can also be described as a pissed up pest helping themselves to the last of the brandy cream to be had in three counties in the mistaken belief it’s very soft cheese. Nothing discourages midnight snacking quite like an enraged badger being launched by a small compressed-air catapult across a room at a now screaming reveller who has just activated a pressure sensor at the kitchen door.
Luckily, as well as the vegetables coming from the kitchen garden and the more ‘exotic’ herbs from the greenhouse, the Master insists that the Feast consist as much as possible of animals killed on the estate. Unfortunately, given the Gamekeeper’s drinking, perverse sense of humour and almost psychopathic hatred of any animal that might either dig a flower bed, give another animal TB or go through his bins, this has meant scouring the internet for festive recipes for fox, badger and, on one desperate occasion, rambler.
The Christmas feast is, by tradition, twelve courses, all of them featuring some sort of meat – something of a challenge when it comes to the cheese platter but the sort of challenge I relish, which coincidently also forms part of the cheese platter. It would take too long, and probably be incriminating, to describe all the dishes in full, but suffice to say that this year not only were guests required to use the usual assortment of knives, forks and spoons, but also had to employ a small lance for one course, a tiny fishing rod for the fish course described as ‘so fresh it’s frisky’ and, the most talked about cutlery of the night; the table trebuchet.
Happy eating and Happy New Year
Labels: Blogging, Christmas, Guest blogger, New Year
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