Christmas, honestly

HO HO HUMBUG:Cooking for family and friends at Christmas can be a minefield. TRISH DESEINEhas tips on how to avoid stove-side squabbles and dining table battles.

Perhaps I’ve been in France too long, but as a divorced woman over 45, I find Christmases are like sex; the best times come when you expect them least, and when they are good, they are very, very good.

I have tasted, and cooked, a lot of Christmases – the full French belle-famille feast for 25; five-course sit-downs for 65 friends; sad, grey turkey with my late father in a north Antrim hotel; Parisian palace opulence; nostalgic Irish-themed perfection, and loved-up dreaminess – when I burned everything.

And, far from it being something to bemoan, I find that Christmas arriving faster and faster is one of the great advantages of growing older. Even before this year’s has started, I’m happily saying, “Oh well, there’s always next year.”

Still, managing aspirations and expectations at Christmas can be tricky, and emotional over-investment is rife, especially when it comes to grub.

I think it helps to be honest with yourself about who is really running the cooking show. Be prepared to discover that this may not be you – even in your own home – and may include people whose plum pudding recipe lives on, tyrannically, when they themselves have been dead for many years. It’s best to accept it gracefully until it’s your turn to really make all the decisions.

Other people’s obscure festive madeleines of claggy stuffing, or gravy made with Bisto, may have little to do with good food or cooking. Let it go, and if you have children, try to make different memories for them when you at last get the chance.

If you’re a guest somewhere, unless there has been full-scale prior consultation, avoid being drawn into creating something new or to order. An exception is with family heirloom dishes like my Auntie Beattie’s tinned pineapple on crushed digestives topped with whipped cream and chocolate Flake. A pudding so brilliantly consensual it has no name, no one can argue with it, or mess it up.

But even if you’re with your own family, you will sometimes feel like you’ve got a bit part in a soap opera, you’re two series in, and still no one’s given you a script.

One year, in Paris, I was asked to cook Christmas lunch in someone else’s kitchen. It was the first time a very elderly, disapproving French father had set foot in his gay son and partner’s new home.

At the table was his sister-in-law, to whom he hadn’t spoken in 40 years, and his manic depressive daughter who hadn’t been taking her medication. My divorce had just kicked in and this was my first Christmas without my (then) small children. It was Dysfunction Central and things were tense, to say the least.

I had hoped cooking for my friends would be a good distraction for me, while making their obvious load a little lighter.

As the day went on, the slow, furious rebellion of three generations deprived of the Christmases they wanted, seemed to aim itself more and more at the cook.

They were appalled by my spiced pumpkin soup as an appetiser, “too rustic for Christmas”. No one ate the foie gras starter as one of the “three ways” was raw and thus “too weird for Christmas”.

By the main course, a faultless poularde, only two of 12 of us were still at the table. The others were either sulking in a bedroom or had left, fuming, to find a boulangerie still open as the children had eaten all the bread before we sat down.

Leaving aside family politics, the classic Irish Christmas dinner isn’t easy to pull off. It’s impossible to coordinate alone, hence many a domestic cook’s dilemna. The real challenge is the logistics: organising the shopping, storing it all beforehand and then sharing the kitchen with people who are usually only on the other end of a phone.

This is why I would be wary of taking too much advice from professional chefs, or anyone who’s used to lots of staff and space. I don’t care how relaxed they say they are when they’re at home, getting help from the overequipped at times like these is like using Gerhard Richter to show you how to paint the spare room.

The Christmas dinner plate itself is as overgarnished – if not quite as gastronomically illogical – as Chicken Maryland. Tender turkey, salty ham, crunchy bacon, fat sausages, (chez moi, anyway) not-too-mushy sprouts, creamy mash, ungreasy gravy, crispy/fluffy roast potaoes, spicy bread sauce, aromatic stuffing, sour cranberries and sweet apples.

If you can land all that, properly cooked, and hot, on a plate at the same time, there’s your Christmas miracle.

Christmas catering: a few things to conider

Buy good, local, quality. Order ahead from small suppliers and cook it simply to let the taste shine through.

Go Cajun or Thai or Mexican with the leftovers by all means, but on Christmas Day, there’s enough happening on that plate.

Do make your own sauces and stuffing, but tone down simple flavours to combinations of two or three. For example: parsley and onion stuffing; cranberry, apple and orange sauce.

Serve Irish smoked salmon or mackerel on bread or blinis with drinks and skip the starter.

Get the boiled or steamed items out of the way early, they’re easy to reheat, it will save your hairdo and free up space.

Most important is the roasting and resting of the bird. (Look it up online or ask your butcher)

If you haven’t got a microwave (or a hostess trolley) get one or borrow one.

If it’s a small gathering, better a really good chicken or duck than a bit of a turkey or goose.

A very personal approach – halve the usual quantities of Christmas pudding, double the cream and brandy, buy one excellent cheese and many excellent chocolates.

Expensive crackers are never worth it.

There will not be enough gravy.