407 KITCHEN AND COOKCRY A MEATILESS CHRISTMAS DINNER By Mrs. EUSTACE MILES A. Meatless Christmas Dinner Need not Interfere with Old Traditions-How to Make the Meal Appetising and Attractive— A Specimen Menu— Some Recipes
- X/"^^ shall we have for our Christmas
- dinner ? " This is the anxious inquiry
of the beginner in food reform at this time of year. And really it is a most important question, for Christmas is a festival with a double meaning. Not merely does it imply a Church festival, with Christmas decorations, Christmas carols, Christmas presents, Christmas-trees, Christmas cards, " snapdragon," mistletoe and holly, and all the other old-world meanings of Christmas Day. It is more than a mere festival — it is a feast ! And the feast ? According to the ordinary Christmas family dinner it means : Clear and Thick Soups Sirloin of Beef Roast or Boiled Turkey (with Ham or Tongue or Sausages) Two or three Vegetables Christmas Pudding and Mince Pies (both of which contain chopped animal suet) Cheese Dessert Coffee That is the sort of Christmas dinner to which I myself was accustomed for many years of my life. I never even gave it a thought, or wondered why everybody — myself included — was always inclined to be heavy and depressed the next day, and why the doctor generally was called into thu house during the following week to dose someone who had acute indigestion. T now understand the reason. At an ordinary Christmas dinner people eat at one meal as much as ought to last them for a week. They cram themselves with uiic acid and other poisons, and the old proverb, " Feast to-day makes Fast to-morrow " has proved onlv too true. But custom is a very difficult thing to over- come. " Indeed," declared Livy, " so difficult is it to bring people to approve of any alteration of ancient customs that they are always natur- ally disposed to adhere to old practices, unless experience evidently proves their inexpediency." People first have to prove by experience the " inexpediency " of the heavy Christmas meal ; then they will begin to consider if there is not a better and healthier way of celebrating the festival and feast of Christmas than by over- eating. At the same time, however, the Christ- mas dinner is a happy meeting time, and so I think it is most important that the old custom should be kept up as far as possible, and that the new ideals about food reform and the new science of meatless cookery should not sweep away these happy family Christmas dinners. But the questioti is. What can be substituted for the old-fashioned Christmas menu ? One most important point is to make the meatless dinner as attractive in appearance and flavour as possible ; to put the best cooking into it ; to make it impossible for the meal to be labelled " dull " ; and to see that the flavours are varied and attractive to the taste. The number is increasing of those who, for humane or health reasons, do not wish to have animal foods introduced into their Chri-stmas menu. And it is to those I am offering these suggestions of what can take the place of the ordinary meat-eater's Christmas dinner. But it must be remembered that it is just as easy to eat too much in a meatless menu as in a meat menu ; and it is equally important to avoid this error of over-eating. On Christmas Day, as well as on any other day, it is best to end oft a meal feeling that we have eaten just enough and not too much. The soup, for instance, from not having any meat stock in it, and from being made from purest vegetables, does not oppress the digestion, but is only an " appetiser." We all know from the exquisite flavours of French soups — which can be had in mere cottages — how delicious vegetable soups can be. And, when care is taken and art is applied to it, in England we can also produce vegetable soups entirely free from meat stock that will vie in flavour with, and surpass in purity, the usual meat soups. Then as to the entrees and gravies which take the place of the joint. It is again a question of delicacy of flavouring. These meat flavours can be imitated by a clever cook to an extra- ordinary degree in meatless cookery. The Christmas pudding and mince-pies can be made in exactly the same manner as the ordinary ones are made, with the exception that no suet is used, and the substitutes for this come from pure vegetable butter and pine kernels. A MEATLESS CHRISTMAS MENU Soup Mock Turtle, with forcemeat balls Entree (in place of joint) Mock Turkey Galantine, or Nut Roast, and Brown Gravy Celery Sauce Sausages Vegetables Brussels Sprouts Chandos Potatoes Sweets Christmas Pudding Mince-pies -Dessert (with baked Chestnuts) RECIPES MOCK turtle soup Take two quarts of good vegetable stock, put it into a stewpan and bring it to the boil. Add one-sixth of an ounce of " Agar- Agar," and boil until clear. Add two pounds of spinach or sorrel, three bay-leaves, a pinch of thyme and marjoram, two tablespoonfuls of "marmite," and pepper and salt to taste. Boil for two hours and strain through a tamis cloth, and serve with small fried force- meat balls. FORCEMEAT BALLS (To be served in the soup) Ingredients : Two ounces of minced eggs. Two ounces of mushrooms. One ounce of butter. Two ounces of white breadcrumbs. Two eggs. A pinch of chopped parsley. Pepper and salt to taste.
