Christmas Fare

‘And there were with the King three thousand horses, and many poor people, to whom the King gave great alms of ox flesh …Their food is of beef, and the great lords drink milk, and the others beef-tea, and the common people water, and they have excellent butter, since all their meats are of oxen and cows and good horses’.

‘There was a large and beautiful collar of brawn, With its accompaniments, to wit, mustard and Muscadel wine; there were well-stuffed geese, (such as the Lord Bishop is wont to eat at Ardbraccan,) the legs of which Captain Caulfield always laid hold of for himself; there were pies of venison and of various kinds of game; pasties also, some of marrow, with innumerable plums; others of it with coagulated milk ,- such as the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London almost always have at their feasts; others, which they call Tarts, of divers shapes, materials and colours, made of beef, mutton and veal.’

‘The Irish aqua vitae, commonly called usquebagh, is held the best in the world of that kind, which is made also in England, but nothing so good as that which is brought out of Ireland. And the usquebagh (uisce beatha) is preferred before our aqua vitae, because the mingling of raisins, fennel-seed, and other things mitigating the heat, and making the taste pleasant, makes it less inflame, and yet refresh the weak stomach with moderate heat and a good relish.’

‘Take a goose and break the bones thereof and a Couple of  Rabbitts and stick cloves in the breast of your goose and season it very well and putt butter on the top and baste and bake it and fill it up well with butter.’

O’Rourke’s noble fare, will ne’er be forgot,
By those who were there, or those who were not.
His revels to keep, we sup and we dine
On seven score sheep, fat bullocks and swine.
Usquebaugh* to our feast, in pails was brought up
A hundred at least, and a madder* our cup.
‘Come harper, strike up, but first by your Favour

Boy, give us a Cup, ay, this has some Savour.

*Uisce Beatha/Whiskey; *Meither, a large hospitality cup. The Liam McCarthy Cup is based on this medieval vessel.

‘When dinner was announced, very near a hundred of the O’s and Macs took their seat. My poor self, being blind, I did what blind men generally do; I groped a vacancy near the foot of the table. Such a noise arose of cutting, carving, roaring, laughing, shaking hands, and such language as generally occurs between friends, who only see each other once a year…Harmony was lost whenever the Port and Claret began to box each other in decanters at all parts of the table. Then the cloth was removed, and the carpet was generally the bed for the principal part of the visitors.’

‘But these notable housewives have still the consolation of hearing their guests commend the mince-pies without meat, which we are assured were made at home, and not like the ordinary heavy things from the pastry-cook’s. These good people would, indeed, look upon the absence of mince-pies as the highest violation of Christmas; and have remarked with concern the disregard that has been shewn of late years to that old English repast: for this excellent British olio is as essential to Christmas as pancake to Shrove Tuesday, tansy to Easter, furmity to Midlent Sunday, or goose to Michaelmas day.’

‘But the dinner, sir, the dinner, was the opus magnum. Bacon and cutlin pudding, roast beef, boiled beef, ducks, chickens, pullets, and turkeys, with a string of et ceteras as long as a plough-chain. ‘Like master like man’ was the order of the day. Guests there were none; for who would dine from home on a Christmas Day? Oh! Sir, those were the times! Hunger was then confined to your pestilential cities; for the peasantry, at least the Irish peasantry, knew nothing of it. The evening, you may be sure, was devoted ‘to mirth and brown ale’; and ‘the wren – the wren, the king of all birds’, – ushered in St Stephen’s Day.’

‘Wednesday. Christmas Eve, a fast day.  A thin–clouded morning.  A mild south west wind. A blue-skied day, as fine as a May day. The poor people are buying pork chops, pigs’ heads, soggy beef, big joints of old sows’ loins, and small bits of old rams, as all the good meat has been  already bought up by the well-off, well-fed people. He who comes last will be the loser, as usual…’

‘Halfway down the hill stood a farmhouse. The farmer was most courteous, but, alas! there was not a morsel of food in his house. What he had he gave, and that was cider, for which, like the Irish peasant of that day, he would take no payment. Each of us drank only one cider glass of it, and we took our departure, cheered, but by no means invigorated.’

‘Even the poorest strive to have something better than common for the Christmas dinner, and this feeling is embodied in the Kerry proverb: ‘Christmas day and the day of the turf, Them are the days we’ll eat enough’, alluding to the day on which the turf is cut, on which occasion the farmers hire a number of the poverty-stricken laborers to assist them, and always make it a point to give them a good dinner for once…’

‘Ansin chuimhnigh mé ar sheift eile. Fuair me dorn mine buí agus d’fhliuch mé leis an stuif as an mbuidéal é agus chuir mé sa bhuaile amuigh é ar phláta. Siúd chuige an gandal mór agus d’alp sé a raibh ann.

Níor bhraith mé faic air go ceann tamaill. Ansin chrom sé ar ghogalaigh. I gceann tamaill d’éirigh sé as sin agus chrom sé ar shiúl timpeall agus leathcheann air. Fáinne a bhí sé a dhéanamh agus é ag siúl. Ansin stad sé agus leath sé a dhá chois amach ó chéile agus bhí sé á shuaitheadh féin anonn is anall. Chuirfeadh sé na cait ag gáire.

 Ansin luigh sé agus dhún sé na súile agus ní fhaca aon oidhre riamh ach é ar shean‒Diarmaid críonna anseo amuigh nuair a bhíonn sé ag titim dá chodladh sa chathaoir mhór os comhair na tine agus é ag míogarnaigh.’

 Translated as:

 ‘Then I thought of something else. I got a fistful of yellow meal and I wetted it with the stuff from the goldie bottle and I put it out in the yard on a plate. Then along came the big gander who just swallowed the whole lot in one go.

 I did not see any difference in him for a while. Then he began to cackle. After a bit he grew tired of that. Then he started walking around with his head tilted right over on its side with one eye looking at the ground and the other at the sky. He was going around in a funny kind of a circle as he walked. Then he stopped and spread his two legs wide apart and began swaying to and fro. It would make even the cats laugh.

 Then he lay down and closed his eyes. He reminded me for all the world of our old Diarmaid when he is sitting in his big chair by the fire at night and the sleep coming over him.’

The very poor managed roast meat, usually mutton. We often rose to two cocks. The goose was common. There was a fruit-cake, jelly and custard; the dinner of the year.

‘Sausage and sage for the stuffing, an experimental bag of chestnuts, vacuum packed. Constance bought a case of Prosecco on special offer to wrap and leave on various doorsteps and threw in eight frozen pizzas in case the kids rolled up with friends. Frozen berries. Different ice creams. She got wine, sherry, whiskey, fresh nuts, salted nuts, crisps, bags and bags of apples, two mangoes, a melon, dark cherries for the fruit salad, root ginger, fresh mint, a wooden crate of satsumas, the fruit cold and promising sweet, each one with its own sprig of green, dark leaves. She got wrapping paper, red paper napkins, Sellotape, and – more out of habit, now the children were grown – packs and packs of batteries , triple A, double A, a few C’s. …The bill came to four hundred and ten euros, a new record. She thought she should have kept the receipt for posterity. Dessie would be almost proud.’