#christmas-food

#christmas-food

The culinary essence of the festive season is a kind of sanctioned chaos. Never mind that, from one angle, Christmas is mostly just rigidly observed collective food traditions and grown adults dying on the hill of whether yorkshire puddings should be served with turkey. I don't think I ever really feel that warming yuletide rush until I have turned a disparate assemblage of leftovers into what, to the casual observer,

For a festival with childbirth at its religious heart, it is perverse how much of our traditional Christmas spread isn't recommended for pregnant women. Pre-pregnancy, this was not something I'd clocked. I was the soft cheese supremo, canape queen at my happiest with a smoked trout blini in one hand and a champagne flute in the other. Then one day in October, two blue lines appeared on a test result and everything started to change: my body, my future and most pressingly my Christmas.

According to the findings, Brits tuck into four party spreads over the winter holidays with 74 per cent saying they plan to host a festive dinner or lunch party. Some 36 per cent said they actually prefer small platters or a buffet-style feast to a traditional sit-down meal. Baked cheese such as camembert or a fondue topped the leaderboard, with 50 per cent of respondents saying it was among their favourite of all picky bits.