“HUMAN BEINGS ARE HUNGRY FOR RELATIONSHIPS, AND SHARING FOOD IS ONE OF THE WAYS IN WHICH THAT HUNGER IS FED”

What’s your history with Borough Market?

I’ve studied and then worked in London for most of my life, apart from periods in Copenhagen and Cambridge, so have known the Market since I was 18. I loved it from the minute I found myself in it. I love good food and produce, always wanting to support local growers and non-chains, so it was exciting, engaging, and a place I always brought friends and visitors.

Does the Market’s approach to food chime with your own?

I do care about supply chains, about the need for healthy and nutritious meals, especially for children, and I get very angry about food waste. I’ve always liked American food writer Michael Pollan’s comment that if it came from a plant, eat it, but if it was made in a plant, don’t. Having been visiting some food banks and soup kitchens lately, I’m also very aware of food poverty in our city and keen to think through how such a locality that celebrates food so deeply can help more.

The Cathedral and Market have been neighbours for centuries. What do you think these two historic institutions have in common?

Well, I suppose in our different ways we are both about nourishment – body and soul. It is significant that the main service in the Cathedral is based around the sharing of food – bread and wine – and that we believe that the way each receives an equal sharing at the service is how life should be outside the church doors: an equal share, with each being valued, equal in dignity and potential. When food is shared in families and among friends, it becomes more than nutrition. It is a shared symbol of togetherness that enables us to grow towards each other, sometimes with joy and sometimes in pain. Human beings are hungry for relationships, and sharing food is one of the ways in which that hunger is fed. At its best, faith is another.

What is it about Christmas in particular that makes food such an integral part of the celebrations?

At Christmas, Christians celebrate our belief that Jesus is the human face of God. Christians believe that God became human, and so understands us from within, and so Christianity takes bodies seriously. It also takes relationships seriously, and so sharing food is central to its celebration of ‘incarnation’. At a time when many are trying to be great examples of power, we need to see again the greater need for the power of example. By sharing what we have and looking out for those who do not enjoy what we do, an example is given of a kindness and generosity that society so urgently needs to reclaim.

How busy a period is this for you?

Very busy! We have so many carol services, I joke that it is “death by Little Donkey”. Seriously though, I love Christmas, especially the services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and the glass of champagne I have as soon as I get home. I toast all those I have lost in life and who meant so much. This year I lost my grandmother, who brought me up, and I will miss her deeply, as she adored Christmas too.

What are your own favourite Christmas foods? Is there anything specific you’re intending to buy from the market traders?

I love a goose at Christmas! I also really love Christmas pudding. I like some cheese on Boxing Day as I recover from lunch the day before, so I’ll be on the prowl for some nice goat’s cheese and a good bit of blue. Have a great Christmas!

“DON’T THINK OF LEFTOVERS AS ‘EXTRA FOOD’ THAT NEEDS USING UP, BUT AS ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS IN THEMSELVES”

Words: Gurdeep Loyal / Image: Stuart Ovenden

The season of festive plenty is also the season of plentiful leftovers – which with daunting speed can fill up the fridge and freezer quicker than you can open the windows of your advent calendar. The trick is to not think about them as ‘extra food’ that needs to be eaten up somehow, but as essential ingredients in themselves that can enliven other complete dishes.

Leftover cheese

The festive cheeseboard has the potential to be transformed into countless different delectations. My favourite is Christmas pasties, which have the added benefit of using up any leftover chutney, quince jelly or other condiments. I made mine with Sparkenhoe from Neal’s Yard Dairy – a raw cow’s milk cheese, it has a rich nutty taste and melts wonderfully – and a traditional sharp clothbound Pitchfork cheddar made in Hewish, north Somerset by Trethowan Brothers. You can also add in leftover soft cheeses, such as The French Comte’s creamy brie and buttery Domaine de St Loup Normandy camembert. These pasties really do work with any festive cheese accompaniment you might have, such as Northfield Farm’s banquet of Tracklements chutneys, all of which are fantastic, or Pimento Hill’s Festive Chutney, bursting with cranberries, plums, spices and port. Adding a splash of tangy vinegar to the filling amplifies all the flavours to a new level. I love the Biologico Malpighi balsamic from The Olive Oil Co: tart, vibrant and well balanced. Melted together in crumbly, oven-warm pastry, it all amounts to a festive hug on a plate.

Festive cheese & chutney pasties

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Leftover bread sauce

Leftover bread sauce is among the first things to be devoured at my Christmas table, but in the unlikely event that you do have any spare, it’s wonderful added to the savoury custard filling of a quiche. This is also a lovely way to use up any leftover charcuterie. I adore the flavour-packed Spanish hams from Brindisa, like their smoky-salty Leon serrano or sweet, fresh-tasting Galician roast ham. You always want a strong robust cheese with any homemade quiches. The toasty, tangy Oude Beemster gouda from Borough Cheese Company is ideal for this, or for something a little different try their Olde Remeker, a paler, intensely creamy cheese aged for 13 months. Alternatively, head to Une Normande à Londres for a sharp, fruity gruyère or nutty Jura comté vieux. The bread sauce brings everything together, adding an additional layer of savoury flavour and a pleasing grainy texture to the set custard filling. This is delicious hot or cold: serve with a peppery green salad, a simple mustardy vinegarette and dollop of chutney on the side.

Smoked ham, gouda & bread sauce quiche

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Leftover veg

A filo pie filled with leftover vegetables makes the perfect centrepiece for any vegan guests over the festive period. This recipe has a shattering, crackling pastry exterior, and rich savoury veg-packed filling. Brindisa’s cooked sweet chestnuts are perfect here – grown in Galicia, Spain’s mecca for chestnuts, they have a sweet, intensely nutty flavour and rich, buttery texture. Alternatively, try the roasted Kentish cobnuts from Food & Forest, with their grassy, hazelnutty bite. For something a little more unexpected, you could even add a pinch of lavender from Le Marché du Quartier, some finely grated lemongrass from Raya or even a sprinkle of za’atar from Arabica to the mix.

Parsnip, chestnut, sprout & sage filo pie

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“THE BEST CANAPE PACKS A PUNCH OF UNCOMPROMISINGLY LOUD FLAVOUR, PRIMED TO GET THE PALATE PARTY STARTED”

Words: Gurdeep Loyal / Image: Stuart Ovenden

Being a good host is all about knowing what your guests might desire before they’ve realised it themselves. With this in mind, greeting them with a seasonal tipple and astonishingly delicious nibble at the door is the definition of festive hospitality. With canapes, there are three golden rules: offer something that’s easy to hold with one hand only; sized to provide two satisfying bites; and packs a punch of uncompromisingly loud flavour, primed to get the palate party started. My take on three party classics will do just that.

Devilled eggs

Devilled eggs, a well-loved party favourite in the 70s and 80s, have had something of a revival in recent years – with all sorts of global iterations perking up this joyful retro classic. This Japanese-inspired take brings in Asian flavours with unapologetic gusto and will go down a storm at any seasonal bash. 13 Acre Orchard has the perfect organic eggs for these: fresh from the nest, with sunshine-yellow yolks thanks to the range of grasses the free-roaming chickens feed upon. Head to Spice Mountain for some miso and wasabi, both of which add pleasing punches of flavour. It’s the shichimi togarashi Japanese spice blend that’s the true hero of these mini bites, though, combining white and black sesame seeds, sancho pepper, orange peel, chillies, seaweed and ginger. It’s best to make a double batch of these from the get-go. They really are a party on the palate!

Sizzled spring onion & togarashi devilled eggs

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Cheese straws

The only thing more suited to a celebratory martini than a briny olive or cured anchovy from Brindisa is a home-baked cheese straw – far superior to those you can buy in shops. These crumbly, savoury biscuit batons are perked up with zhug from Arabica – a fresh, verdant Yemeni chilli paste, rich in coriander, green chilli, cumin, clove and cardamon. Alternatively, use fresh harissa from Borough Olives, made with hot chillies, garlic, caraway, paprika and rapeseed oil, or the deliciously warming chimichurri sauce from Porteña. Sparkenhoe from Borough Cheese Company is a great base cheese for these straws, particularly with the addition of some Red Cow parmesan from Bianca Mora, aged for 24 months for a rich, savoury flavour. For an extra touch of spice, add in some earthy, toasty, brick-red smoked paprika from Spice Mountain.

Zhug cheese straws

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Devils on horseback

The ultimate party bite is something that hits every tastebud at the same time – sweet, savoury, salty and crunchy, all at once. These devils on horseback do just that. For the fruit element, Date Sultan’s premium medjool dates are succulent and juicy. For something a little chewier, the safawi or mabroom, both from Saudi Arabia, have toffee-caramel flavours and a rich dark colour. Alternatively, use dried apricots or figs. For the oozy filling, Blackwood Cheese Company’s Graceburn is perfect – a feta-inspired cheese with a creamier, more buttery texture. Greek wild flower honey sold at Oliveology, Ginger Pig’s smoked streaky bacon – marbled with fat that crisps up perfectly – and Food & Forest’s flavourful walnut kernels from Grenoble finish these morsels off a treat. Serve warm from the oven with champagne, crémant, franciacorta, or a bottle of something else suitably effervescent, ready to pop throughout the night!

Feta & thyme honey devils on horseback

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“IF TWO CHEESES MIGHT BE TOO FEW, THEN I THINK THAT ANY MORE THAN SEVEN IS JUST TOO MANY”

Images: Kim Lightbody

When discussing cheeseboard strategy, I normally tend to argue (strongly and perhaps a little patronisingly) that the correct approach, *actually*, is to go big on just one or two things – personally, I’m partial to a quarter of Stichelton and a significant wedge of aged comté.

But let’s be honest, it’s impossible to limit yourself to two types of cheese when you arrive at a good cheesemongers, let alone Borough Market, where there are over 20 different traders from whom you can buy quality, artisan-produced cheese. Still, in pursuit of a balanced board, I do think it’s worth bearing in mind a few guidelines.

If two cheeses might be too few, then I think that any more than seven is just too many. Plumping for five, six or seven cheeses allows you to cover the steady crowd-pleasers, while also exploring a few more leftfield choices. If you lose all self-control, I wonder whether people will really appreciate the effort, or have the chance to appreciate all the cheeses at their peak.

You could of course theme your board by country, though I personally think it’s good to have an open-border policy. At the Market you’ll find world class cheeses from Britain, Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and beyond.

And so, for a varied and balanced selection, I would suggest that the absolute essentials are:

• A characterful hard cheese, such as a farmhouse cheddar, or an Alpine-style cheese akin to a comté or schlossburger
• A mellow blue, such as a stilton or fourme d’Ambert
• A soft blooming rind, such as a brie, camembert or Tunworth
• A sharp goat’s milk cheese – one of the little triangular, cylindrical or cuboid ones.

And then add two or three from the following:

• A ‘stinky’ washed rind cheese, such as an Epoisses or St James
• An ‘unusual’ hard cheese that no one will have had before
• A sharp blue, such as a roquefort or gorgonzola piccante
• A mellow, semi-hard cheese, such as a Morbier, Mayfield or tomme de Savoie
• A ewe’s milk cheese, such as pecorino, manchego or Berkswell
• A ‘novelty’ eye-opener, whether that’s a drunk cheese from L’Ubriaco, Jumi Cheese’s Blue Brain, a brie layered with truffle, or something smoked. Personally, I think it’s best to ignore cheeses flecked with cranberries, even at Christmas, but each to their own.

And don’t forget the condiments. For me the trio comprising an oatcake-style biscuit, a plain cracker and then a wildcard of your choice provides the right balance of intrigue and dependability. The Market isn’t short of fresh grapes and figs, dried fruits, pickles, jellies and pastes such as damson cheese and membrillo. One or two of those will cut through nicely.

Here is my Borough Market cheese board for Christmas 2022:

PITCHFORK CHEDDAR

Trethowan Brothers

An unpasteurised farmhouse cheddar from the Somerset-based makers of Gorwydd Caerphilly. Not overly mature or feisty (it’s aged for a touch over 11 months) but it’s characterful, grassy and earthy.

RUYGE WEYDE GOUDA

Borough Cheese Company

An 18 month-aged gouda with a really amazing range of flavours (from grassy meadow through to banoffee) and an umami crystal crunch redolent of a punchy parmesan.

BATH BLUE

Bath Soft Cheese Co

A mellow, creamy, blue-veined cheese, made at Park Farm from the organic milk of its own herd of cows. Powerful flavour without being gum-receding.

YOUNG PECORINO

Bianca Mora

Pecorino comes in many guises, and Bianca Mora’s aged variety is exceptional, but I think this young, pale, salty smooth version balances my board really nicely. The flavour of sheep’s milk is really evident.

SAINT-FÉLICIEN

Mons Cheesemongers

This oozy-soft white rind cheese from the Rhône-Alpes region of France is as creamy and luscious as you would expect from something based on double cream. There’s a little tang to it too. A beauty.

DORSTONE

Neal’s Yard Dairy

A light and fluffy cylinder of goat’s cheese with a bright white paste, displaying citrus acidity. This will contrast nicely with the likes of Bath Blue and Pitchfork (and indeed the turkey, goose or beef from earlier on).

BASAJO

L’Ubriaco Drunk Cheese

Here’s my wild card: a sharp soft blue reminiscent of a roquefort, but this time it’s had a swim in passito di Pantelleria, an Italian dessert wine, so there’s a sweet and slightly boozy edge too. You don’t need much per biscuit, and yet it’s remarkably moreish!

“IF MOSCATO FOLLOWED BY CHAMPAGNE IS TOO MUCH EFFERVESCENCE, POUR A GLASS OF STILL WHITE INSTEAD”

There are endless reasons to twist a screwcap or pop a cork at this time of year, so the wine options are endless too. Those of us who take pains to drink the right bottle for every occasion can wallow in our obsessions with reckless abandon as we perform the noble task of choosing the wine of the moment. Christmas Day itself is packed full of possibilities, so here’s my guide to the perfect wine styles, from dawn to dusk.

When the adults start opening presents (let’s assume, for the sake of decency, that this is mid to late morning), one delicious, failsafe option is a moscato d’Asti from Piedmont in northern Italy. Its frothy fizz immediately puts a smile on your face (which could be handy if Big Day tensions are already in the air), and its slightly sweet elderflower and pear fruitiness really peps up the palate in a ‘naughty breakfast juice’ kind of way. Perhaps its best attribute is its low alcohol – it rarely exceeds 6.5%, perfect for a wine consumed early in the day. Plus, if there’s any left over, it’s a handy match with trifle.

The next likely wine opportunity would be pre-lunch, perhaps with a plate of smoked salmon. The answer? Champagne, of course. Perhaps try the blanc de blancs style, made with chardonnay only – zesty and light on its feet – or a brut non-vintage style, with its drinkable ratio of fruitiness to toastiness. If moscato followed by champagne is too much effervescence, pour a glass of still white instead. Smoked salmon enjoys many white wines, so this could be the opportunity to try something off-piste but hugely drinkable. The vermentino grape, for example, makes a dry, super-fresh lemon and lime-flavoured wine – a clever and unpredictable option that also makes a great talking point.

And so on to the starters: if you’re having a pâté of some description, crack open a bottle of pinot gris. It’s the same grape as pinot grigio, but when called gris it’s a very  different style. Gris is the more serious version, dry or slightly off dry (the latter better with pâté), with a smooth, rounded apple and pear lusciousness. If there is any left over, this grape also makes a great pairing with many cheeses, including brillat-savarin, feta, halloumi or most kinds of goat’s cheese.

For turkey with all the trimmings, red usually works best – even though there is plenty of white meat on the bird, the plate is also adorned with many rich accompaniments. This is where the pinot noir comes in very handy, being a red grape full of sumptuous red fruit flavours as well as a gentle savouriness that respects the earthier flavours of the dish.

We’ll finish, as is only right and proper, with port. Nothing works better with stilton than a glass of vintage port, the sweetness and depth of flavour of which makes it one of the few wines that can match up to the blue cheese’s pungency. For Christmas pudding, mince pies and Christmas cake, a lighter and slightly less expensive tawny port is sheer heaven. Tawnies come in different ages (10, 20, 30 and 40 years old), and the younger the age, the more chilled the drink should be served. Avid port drinkers would declare port to be a course all by itself: the perfect finish to the perfect festive wine drinking day.

“THE TURKEY BECAME A CENTREPIECE FOR FEASTS, WHERE IT WAS SEEN AS AN EXCELLENT ALTERNATIVE TO PEACOCK”

It is emblematic of how in the world of food the extraordinary can soon become ordinary that the two defining components of the ‘traditional’ British Christmas dinner – turkey and potatoes – are, at root, as British as the spider monkey and the agave cactus. Like the now deeply humble spud, turkey is a foodstuff that in the modern age has somehow become a by-word for blandness. But, like the potato, it was just a few centuries ago a food of great novelty, imbued with all the exoticism of the far-off Americas. Until the start of 16^th century, when Spanish invaders made their first wide-eyed incursions into Mexico, no European had ever seen a turkey – an extravagantly-plumed bird with a placid temperament and the body of a steroid-pumped chicken. Now, it’s a much-derided fixture of the supermarket freezer section.

In 1520, shortly after the conquistadores had begun their subjugation of the Aztec empire, two turkeys were sent across the ocean to Lorenzo Pucci, a cardinal in Rome. Around the same time, a few of these giant birds were also seemingly being raised in Spain – and it was in Spain and Italy, then bound together by the ruling Hapsburg monarchy, that this New World arriviste found favour. Quite when the turkey first made it to England is unclear, but probably the mid-1530s. In 1550, William Strickland, who sailed to the Americas with the Venetian explorer Sebastian Cabot, was granted a coat of arms including “a turkey-cock in his pride proper”, apparently in celebration of his role in introducing the bird to these shores, but supporting evidence is lacking.

Many thousands of words have been expended on elaborate theories as to how the turkey got its English name – a knotty subject not helped by the fact that other edible birds, including the guinea fowl, were already being described as ‘turkey cocks’. By far the most likely explanation is that ‘Turkey’ or ‘Turkish’ was used as a shorthand for foreign glamour – maize, also from the Americas, was sometimes referred to as Turkish corn – in the same way that the adjective ‘French’ was commonly applied by the English to anything a bit unsavoury or venereal. Confusion thus abounded. Samuel Johnson, in the 1755 edition of his dictionary, listed turkey as “a large domestick fowl brought from Turkey”. In the 1785 edition, he updated this to say that it was “supposed to be” brought from Turkey – a clear hedging of bets.

Admired for its impressive scale and exotic aura, the turkey became a centrepiece for opulent feasts, where it was seen as an excellent alternative to the once ubiquitous peacock. The turkey may not have been blessed with quite such dramatic plumage (a peacock would usually be served with its head and feathers stitched back on to provide a touch of table-top theatre), but it more than made up for that by actually tasting nice. According to the Spanish writer Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, its flesh was “incomparably better and more tender than that of the peafowls in Spain”. Pope Pius V’s chef Bartolomeo Scappi agreed, declaring turkey meat to be “much whiter and softer than that of the common peacock”. His typically appealing suggestion (Pius was a well-fed pontiff) was to blanch the bird in water, lard it with pork fat, stud it with cloves and then spit-roast it slowly.

There was, though, such a thing as too much turkey. In 1541, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer issued an injunction designed to clamp down on the perceived gluttony of English ecclesiasts. In a foreshadowing of George Osborne’s insistence that austerity definitely meant being “in it together”, Cranmer selflessly limited his own meal allowance, and that of other archbishops, to a meagre six meat courses and four sweets. The turkey was included in a clause limiting the number of “greater fishes or fowles” that could be served up: “There should be but one in a dish, as crane, swan, turkeycock, haddock, pike, tench.” Any greedy ecclesiast wishing to dine on a duo of turkeys with a side of swan would, like it or not, simply have to pull in his belt.

A Book of Cookrye, published in 1584, included the oldest surviving English recipe for turkey – split in two to ensure even cooking, filled with a “good store of butter”, then baked for five hours – while Thomas Dawson proved in 1587 that no beast is too big for an Englishman to stick in a pie: in The Good Huswife’s Jewell he recommended boning the bird, boiling it, larding it, then enclosing in a pastry “coffin”. The 17^th century recipes left behind by Sir Kenelm Digby were even more adventurous. One, entitled ‘to souce turkeys’, involved a boned turkey being boiled in wine and vinegar, seasoned with salt, covered with more vinegar and then stored for a month, while another required the meat to be salted for 10 days before being pickled with mace and nutmeg.

From as early as the 1570s, the centre for British turkey breeding became firmly established in Norfolk and Suffolk, counties with a history of poultry rearing and an abundance of buckwheat and turnip, both ideal fodder crops. In the 1720s, in a journalistic work entitled A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, Daniel Defoe reported: “This county of Suffolk is particularly famous for furnishing the city of London, and all the counties round, with turkeys; and that tis thought, there are more turkeys bred in this county, and the part of Norfolk that adjoins to it, than in all the rest of England, especially for sale.”

Getting turkeys from East Anglia to the busy markets of London wasn’t easy. This isn’t a bird whose meat benefits from hanging around for long, so in the era before refrigeration, turkeys had to be transported live and, given how few could fit in a cart, predominantly on foot. This led to the surreal sight of massive gangs of fat turkeys waddling along the highways and byways of East Anglia and Essex through autumn and early winter, feeding on the post-harvest stubble of the farms that lined the route. Defoe reported that “300 droves of turkeys (for they drive them all in droves on foot) pass in one season over Stratford Bridge on the River Stour”. With an average drove numbering 500 birds, this meant that 150,000 turkeys could be seen toddling along this narrow road over the course of a few months. And you think the A12 is congested now.

The turkey’s association with Christmas began to develop soon after the bird’s arrival on these shores. There was an easy logic to this: turkeys hatch in late spring and grow to full maturity in around seven months, meaning that they’re ready for the dinner table in December, right on cue. In Thomas Tusser’s 1573 poem Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie, which contains instructions for country-living – like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in rhyming couplets – the perfect Christmas fare was said to include: “Beef, mutton, and pork, shred pies of the best / Pig, veal, goose, and capon, and turkey well drest.” Hannah Glasse’s The Art of Cookery (1747) contained a recipe for ‘Yorkshire Christmas pie’ – a staggering construction that firmly contradicted that county’s reputation for miserliness by somehow accommodating a turkey, a fowl, a partridge and a pigeon, all arranged (presumably stuffed one inside the other) “so it will look only like a whole turkey”, then surrounded by a jointed hare, “woodcocks, more game, and what sort of wild fowl you can get”, before being dowsed with “at least four pounds of butter” and covered in pastry.

Like so much of our ‘traditional’ festive iconography, it was during the reign of Queen Victoria that turkeys became fundamental to the British image of yuletide. The final chapter of Charles Dickens’s phenomenally successful A Christmas Carol played its part in cementing the connection. Overwhelmed by his discovery of the joys of generosity, Scrooge buys a “prize turkey” to send to the downtrodden Bob Cratchit as a gift. The former miser’s excitement upon buying it borders on the unhinged: “‘I shall love it, as long as I live!’ cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. ‘I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It’s a wonderful knocker! Here’s the turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!’”

Turkeys soon became a staple of Christmas cards and magazine illustrations, but it was only in the 1950s that they started to show up with the quite the same ubiquity on Britain’s festive dinner tables. The reason for this disparity was simple: cost. Domesticated turkeys proved expensive to raise, thanks in part to their hearty appetites – the 16^th century French scientist Charles Estienne described them as “coffers to cast oats into; a devouring gulf of meat” – and in part to their susceptibility to disease, harsh weather and predators. Plus, according to William Ellis, an 18^th century farmer from Hertfordshire, stinging nettles: “A nettle will sting them to death, by making their head to swell, till they pine and die.” Mrs Beeton described the turkey as “one of the most difficult birds to rear” and claimed that “in the middle of the 18th century, scarcely 10 out of 20 young turkeys lived”. As a result, turkey remained an expensive bird consumed on special occasions by the middle classes, and only dreamt of by the poor. In the 20^th century, two interlinked strands of innovation – selective breeding and intensive farming – dramatically increased the affordability of turkey, but at a high cost to the welfare of the birds, the once exalted flavour of their meat and the viability of the traditional small-scale farmers who had previously reared them.

In 1927, Jesse Throssel, an English farmer who had moved to Canada, imported three Bronze turkeys from back home to use as the basis for a breeding programme focused on optimising meat content. His birds, eye-popping in the scale of their chests, were exhibited in 1930 at the Portland International Livestock Show and were picked up by excited American breeders who worked to further enhance these characteristics. This new breed, known as the Broad-breasted Bronze, was so wide of breast and short of leg that mating was seriously problematic, making artificial insemination a necessity, but its commercial appeal was obvious. In the 1950s, crossbreeding with the White Holland led to the development of the Broad-breasted White, which had the benefit of maturing even younger and looking neater after plucking, despite tasting of pretty much nothing. The Broad-breasted White, which sacrificed flavour for size and cheapness, now dominates large-scale turkey production in Britain and the United States.

By tightly packing their turkeys into indoor pens and stuffing them with carefully formulated feed, farmers were able to produce meat with staggering efficiency, particularly after the discovery of vitamin D in 1922 allowed for the creation of supplements to eradicate rickets, a disease caused by a lack of sunlight. Today, intensively farmed turkeys are routinely de-beaked, de-toed and de-snooded within days of hatching in order to restrain the violent and often cannibalistic instincts triggered by imprisonment; they are injected with antibiotics and pumped full of high-nutrient foods; then, after a short, stressful and tedious life, they are slaughtered and automatically de-feathered.

These farming techniques, and the dominance of the Broad-breasted White, have turned mass produced turkey into a bland shadow of the delicious bird that got Scrooge all misty-eyed. In recent years, though, Britain has seen a small but significant revival in demand for older, more flavoursome breeds, distinctive in colour and flavour, raised outdoors on a natural diet, resulting in meat that is similar in style and taste to the birds that had Thomas Tusser rhyming. These are the real prize turkeys – good enough to make the greatest of humbugs hallo and whoop.

Borough Market: Edible Histories by Mark Riddaway (Hodder & Stoughton) is available now from The Borough Market Store, in bookshops and online.

“THE IDEA OF CELEBRATING WITH SEAFOOD IS A GOOD ONE. THERE’S SOMETHING LOVELY ABOUT EATING FISH ON DARK, COLD DAYS”

Image: Regula Ysewijn

Every season has its particular scents, and perhaps none more so than Christmas. For many of us in Britain, Christmas really begins when the house smells of cinnamon and cloves from the mulled wine and mince pies, and the zest of clementines lingers in the air. In Iceland, by contrast, you know it’s Christmas when you can smell the inimitable tang of rotten skate and the thick cloud of ammonia and fishiness it leaves in its wake.

In Iceland, Christmas is preceded on 23rd December by Thorláksmessa, St Thorlak’s day, a celebration of the patron saint of Iceland. Thorlak’s memory is toasted each year with a special dish of putrefied skate, known as skata, which is fermented for a long time before being eaten with rye bread, butter and potatoes.

Skata divides people. Many Icelanders live in apartments and the overwhelming and pervasive pong created by the cooking of skata gives rise to heated arguments. Some are so horrified by the smell that they insist it should be cooked outside on the barbecue, even at the height of winter. Others seal the doors of the kitchen with duct tape while it’s cooking. But for devotees, it is a happy smell because the Christmas season would not be the same without it. Those who love it say that – as with a pungent cheese, or a bottle of Thai fish sauce – the awful smell and mouth-numbing pungency give way to the most wonderful sweet-savoury flavour, which can be almost addictive. In any case, Icelandic cooks drive out the smell of the skata with the still stronger smell of the smoked lamb eaten on Christmas Day.

Skata may be an extreme example, but it’s just one of many European Christmas and New Year rituals involving fish and seafood. In Britain, we tend to mark the season with meat: with hams and turkeys and geese, adorned with bacon and sausage-meat stuffings and extra sausages on the side. But in most of the rest of Europe, the meal that really matters is not the feasting lunch on 25th December but the fasting dinner on Christmas Eve, which according to Christian custom, always included fish. In Spain, for example, the Christmas Eve dinner may start with a joyous platter of pink prawns in their shells and proceed to hake or bream.

The idea of celebrating with seafood is a good one. There’s something lovely about eating fish on dark, cold days. I love the elegance of the French tradition of seeing in the New Year with oysters. A good oyster tastes like a fresh start: the shocking cold of the sea cleansing your throat.

In Poland and much of Scandinavia, the celebratory fish of Christmas will be some kind of preserved or salted herring. In her book Polska: New Polish Cooking, Zuza Zak notes that one of the Christmas Eve staples in her family is preserved herrings dressed with olive oil, shallots, white pepper and just a little cinnamon. Zak eats this as part of a zakuski spread with rye bread or bagels. The other essential ingredient to go with Polish Christmas Eve herrings is very cold vodka. You have a sip of vodka and then a bite of oily fish. Zak writes that her father believes that fatty foods neutralise the alcohol.

Elsewhere in the Catholic world, the fish of Christmas tends to be salt cod. In her wonderful book European Festival Food, Elisabeth Luard describes the Christmas Eve fasting suppers of Provence, where the meal is called the ‘gros souper’. This starts at around 7pm with a substantial vegetable soup or vegetable gratin made from chard or cardoons. Next come snails, and salt cod, perhaps served with a Provençal sauce of tomatoes with garlic and capers. Luard notes that in Provence at Christmas there are special stalls selling salt-cod puree (‘brandade de morue’) and ready-soaked fish. After the salt cod, the family go out for midnight mass, before returning for mulled wine and 13 desserts – various dried fruits and nuts that represent Christ and his disciples.

The rituals of this Christmas meal have remained unchanged for decades. Luard quotes a Provençal poet, Frederic Mistral, who ate the gros souper in Saint-Remy some time around 1900: “On the white cloth are placed, in appropriate order, the sacramental dishes. The snails, which each diner winkles from the shell with a brand-new pin, the fried salt-cod, the muge [gurnard] stuffed with olives, chard, cardoons, céléri à la poivrade, followed by a host of delicious sweetmeats…”

It’s worth copying the tradition of fish on Christmas Eve. For one thing, the lightness of fish is just right to prepare you for the debauch of brandy butter and roast meats that awaits you the following day. I also feel that fish – really fresh fish – has become one of the greatest of all treats because in so many parts of the country, it is hard to get.

The question is what fish? As with Icelandic skata, there are some Christmassy fish customs that seem like less than a treat. American writer Garrison Keiller recalled his horror during childhood at being served lutefisk – wind-dried stockfish soaked in soapy lye – in honour of his Norwegian ancestors. Keiller knew he would be told to have just a little. “Eating ‘a little’ was,” he notes, “like vomiting ‘a little’, as bad as ‘a lot’.”

I’m afraid I feel the same about carp, even though it brings Christmas joy to millions of people across eastern Europe. Carp in grey sauce is a Christmas Eve delicacy in Germany. As Jane Grigson explains, “The fish is cooked with its scales on and everyone treasures a scale or two in their purse to bring them good luck in the coming year.” I’m charmed by this idea, but not by the fish itself. One December, several years ago, I made a jellied carp and those who ate it are still traumatised by the muddy flavour and strange, fleshy texture.

In my family, we prefer to celebrate Christmas Eve with a huge fish pie, golden-crusted with buttery mashed potatoes and filled with cod, some kind of smoked fish and cold-water prawns in béchamel scented with bay leaf. After his second helping, my youngest child always seems to sleep well, despite the excitement of hanging up his stocking.

Another great fishy centrepiece is salmon baked in pastry with currants and ginger, a dish that was originally created by George Perry-Smith of the legendary Hole in the Wall restaurant in Bath. But this year, I have half a mind to make a big fish soup on Christmas Eve, for our own version of le gros souper. The greatest fish soup recipe I have ever come across was in Gill Meller’s book, Gather.

I have made it several times, never with exactly the combination of fish Meller recommends, but following his aromatics to the letter. What makes it so sublime is that the soup is seasoned not just with fennel and saffron but also paprika and star anise, which give the broth an almost otherworldly warmth. The scent of this soup cooking is so good, it makes me feel it’s Christmas even when it’s not.

“LOOK FOR A MIX OF SLICED MUSCLE MEATS, SLICED LARGE SALAMIS, SMALLER SALAMIS AND A TERRINE OR PÂTÉ”

Images: Kim Lightbody

Given the likely presence of leftover turkey, stuffing, glazed ham, maybe even a rib of beef, you’d be forgiven for thinking that your home does not require any more meat over the festive season. And yet if a meal is taking too long to come together, if people presumptively ‘drop round’, if you can’t stand the thought of yet another hour of cooking, then having a collection of cold and cured meats on hand could well be a (very tasty) lifesaver.

As with my cheese board, there’s a part of me that sees the appeal of focussing on one thing done well. Romantic Iberophiles might aspire to buy a whole jamón, from which a wafer-thin slice can be carved whenever they walk past. Francophiles might hanker after a three-pound terrine, ready to be attacked at any point. As it happens, one of my life goals is to have a meat slicer on my worktop, plus a whole coppa hanging close to hand.

And yet, in reality, a) the constraints of things like, ooh I don’t know, money and space, loom large; and b) it’s actually impossible to limit yourself to just one thing when walking round the many cured meats specialists at Borough Market. This is a place where, within just a few steps, as well as the aforementioned jamón, terrine and coppa, you can also sample (and, again, purchase) spicy, spreadable cured sausage from Calabria, speck from the South Tyrol, cecina (air-dried smoked beef) from Spain, Dalmatian prosciutto, Tuscan lardo, saucisson from Normandy and little salamis from Dorset.

On second thoughts, I’m not quite so green-eyed of those who carve from their own jamón. One thing alone will never do. A varied selection of cold meats trumps one lump.

But where to begin? And where to end? To ensure a balanced spread, I suggest considering a mix of sliced muscle meats, sliced large salamis, smaller salamis to cut yourself (these also last well, so have you covered beyond Boxing Day), and a terrine or pâté or something spreadable. Within that selection, think about mixing up piggy classics, with some non-porcine things too: beef, lamb, goat, venison, duck. And finally, ensure you’ve a range of lean and fatty cuts.

My personal selection for Christmas 2021 follows. I think each of the meats are impressive enough to star as a solo plate, magically produced at the start of a film or a round of charades. But there’s also balance across the board, should you decide to make a platter comprising all of them. As a general rule, 75-100g of thinly sliced cured meat will fill a large plate and is a pretty decent amount – particularly if part of a selection like this one.

Here is my Borough Market cured meat platter for Christmas 2021:

COPPA DI ZIBELLO

The Parma Ham and Mozzarella Stand

This cut, taken from the hard-working collar of a pig, represents the best of all worlds: thanks to the balance of lean meat and a marbling of intramuscular fat, it is both silky and flavourful. Most varieties are pretty good, but this version so is pure and unadulterated, it’s wonderful.

VENISON SALAMI

Alpine Deli

Make the most of the offer at Alpine Deli and walk away with not one but three Tyrolean salamis. A mix of venison, boar and spicy pork sausages will see you through the period. Cut each one into slices slightly thinner than a pound coin (or, if that reference is too dated, half the thickness of an iPhone). When it comes to assembling this particular platter, use the venison.

IBERICO DE BELLOTA SALCHICHON

Brindisa

One of those concentric swirls of Jamon Ibérico de Bellota would go down a treat, wouldn’t it? But maybe that’s something to go for when in the ‘just one thing’ mood I mentioned at the start. It’s worth remembering that the acorn-fattened pigs from whom those hind legs hail are used for other cured meats too, including these rich, salty and pleasingly fatty slices of salchichon.

MOUSSE DE CANARD

Le Marché du Quartier

Some soft charcuterie is always a good call. I was tempted by pâté de campagne or duck rillettes from the same trader, but something about this silky-smooth beige mousse grabbed me and demanded I take a slice. Rich and luxurious.

BRESI

The French Comte

Dark red and absolutely bursting with flavour, as you would expect from cured beef fillet. It’s lightly smoked, too, so there’s another thing that’ll bounce off your tongue. But perhaps the thing that make this cured meat so special is that the fillet originally belonged to a Montbéliarde cow – the breed that provides the milk for comté cheese. And as we all know, that is very tasty indeed.

FINOCCHIONA

Gastronomica

And finally we return to pork, with perhaps its perfect partner: the fennel seed. Light, sweet, tangy and aromatic, with hints of anise, finocchiona is one of the very best styles of large salami and will round this festive platter off nicely.

“MY ULTIMATE DIWALI FEASTING DISH IS SOMETHING THAT URVESH EMPHATICALLY AGREES WITH. I LOVE A BIRIYANI, HE EXPLAINS”

Words: Gurdeep Loyal / Images: RED Agency, Tom Bradley

To me, Diwali has always been the most sensorially riveting festivity of the year. Celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains around the world, the annual ‘festival of lights’ – which this year falls on 1st November, preceded by five days of ceremonies – is a vibrant fantasia of delights, symbolising the luminous triumph of good over the dark forces of evil.

I have vivid memories of my childhood Diwalis, growing up in Leicester – each one illuminated by the shimmering diva oil lanterns that would suddenly adorn every corner of our house and garden from mid-October onwards. I still look forward to Diwali season with giddy excitement, relishing in the sight of glittering saris and sequined paisley pyjama suits; the sputtering sounds of samosas and pakoras in hot oil; the dizzying smell of bonfires and fireworks; and the thrilling taste of cardamon burfi, gingery masala chai and sticky-sweet jalebis, all devoured together in the same bite.

Like me, Urvesh Parvais of Gujarati Rasoi, which serves up vegetarian and vegan Indian food in the Borough Market Kitchen, has treasured memories of the festival’s spiritual rituals. He remembers how his “grandmother would have a temporary Diwali temple in her home, illuminated with fairy lights and effigies of all the Hindu gods. She would pray, light divas and be still. Sitting quietly with her was one of the things I loved most – incense and her love filling my heart as we stared into the flickering divas.”

These sacred aspects also make their way to Ratan Mondal’s Tea2You tea emporium in Borough Market. He tells me that in his family “we worship Hindu deities – the goddess Kali and Ganesha – and perform puja with the use of incense sticks, the sound of bells, and enchanting mantras, similar to what I do every morning at my Borough Market store.” His childhood Diwalis in Kolkata “were commemorated by decorating my home with divas and candles, as in those days we didn’t have fairy lights. By the time I’d finished with the last candle, the first one would be out – and I’d need to jump to light that again!”

Devotional ceremonies are always followed by bountiful feasting, and as Ratan enthusiastically explains, “Diwali is not only a festival of lights… but also the festival of flavours!” My favourite celebratory mouthful growing up was salted gathiya – a flaky, crunchy chickpea-flour snack, speckled with ajwain, nigella seeds and cumin, which my mum would make in gargantuan batches to accompany jugs of fizzy mango-rose punch (often spiked with rum and brandy for the grownups!). I also loved handvo: a lentil and vegetable cake smothered in a rainbow splatter of green coriander, bright red tomato and conker-brown tamarind chutneys, the last of which is especially delicious made with Pantainorasingh tamarind paste from Borough’s Raya stand.

And then there’d be shiny platters of wonderfully rich burfis and ladoos made from condensed milk, floral spices, toasted nuts and semolina – always garnished at this time of year with glistening silver leaf. Gaurav Gautam of Indian street food stand Horn OK Please, who hails from the north of India, took equal pleasure from the savoury and sweet edible delights of Diwali. “Two of the sweets I remember indulging in are gulab jamun sugar doughnuts and kaju katli cashew burfi,” he tells me. “But we also used to make mathri – savoury butter biscuits made of wheat – and crunchy sweet-savoury noodles made from chickpea flour.”

This cornucopia of dishes is also something that Ratan loves to feast on over the festival. “We make crispy spicy samosas, along with Indian masala chai, complemented with sweets like sooji halwa, which is a sweet semolina pudding,” he says. “We also would have rasgulla – Indian paneer balls soaked in thick sugar syrup. We Calcuttans from Bengal must have rasgullas to celebrate any happy event!”

My ultimate Diwali feasting dish is something that Urvesh emphatically agrees with. “I love a biriyani at Diwali!” he explains. “All those layers and flavours!” Fragrant slow-cooked chicken biryani – heady with black cardamon, coriander seeds, saffron and garam masala – is a taste like no other, especially when made using the deliciously complex masala blend from Spice Mountain. Equally electrifying, and just as complex, are the celebratory festive teas at Tea2You, like Ratan’s Indian masala rooibos, blended with cloves, cardamon and cinnamon, delicious brewed with warming fresh ginger and honey. Or for something extra, extra special, his white tea with rose buds has blossoms that unfurl in your cup.

Diwali’s religious ceremonies and feasting all lead up to the festival’s spectacular conclusion, which, as Urvesh tells me, has to be “the fireworks! Ignited as a celebration of light. I’ve always loved them!” Gaurav also remembers “waiting impatiently for our extended family to gather so that we can all go out in the open and enjoy firecrackers.” Ratan laughs about the lengths he would go to in India to ensure the festival’s fiery treasures would take to the skies: “Due to damp soggy weather at this time of year, I would dry my favourite fireworks meticulously in the sunlight on the roof for a week before Diwali, sitting beside them to guard them from being stolen.”

As with Bonfire Night, any Diwali fireworks display calls for delicious food, served long into the night. Horn OK Please’s signature moong dal dosa with warm masala chai would be a fantastic way to celebrate, as would Gujarati Rasoi’s samosa or bhujia chaat – spicy, salty, sweet flavours and satisfying crunchy crisp textures jumbled together in a bowl. At the open-fire Sri Lankan restaurant Rambutan, situated in the heart of the Market, the red pineapple curry with mustard seeds, served with samba rice and a side of green mango yoghurt pachadi, would be an excellent way to celebrate. These are all dishes filled with the spirit of the festival, whose magnificent loud flavours – just like Diwali’s fireworks – are guaranteed to go off with a bang!

“FOOD TO JEWISH PEOPLE IS SOCIALISING, IT’S FAMILY. THERE’S NEVER A TIME WHEN THERE’S NOT FOOD”

Words: Tomé Morrissy-Swan

The meal starts with a prayer. “Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, boreh p’ri hagafen,” says Ivan Lester. Blessed are You, God, ruler of the universe, who creates the fruit of the vine.

“Amen,” those around the table respond.

Ivan pours sweet wine from a small, silver kiddush cup. It tastes not unlike port. He slices a large round challah (not plaited, as is the norm), which represents the circle of life. It’s Rosh Hashanah, a celebration of the new year. And, like all Jewish festivals, it’s heavy with symbolism, especially of the culinary kind. We dip both the soft, sweet, pillowy bread and slices of apple into honey. There are dates on the table, and honey cake too.

“Everything in Rosh Hashanah is sweet, for a sweet new year,” Ivan explains. “It’s a lovely holiday, in anticipation of a good new year,” adds Ivan’s wife, Sandra.

“We’re a very modern Jewish family,” their son, Andrew, says. “For us, Rosh Hashanah is very relaxed, very family orientated. A fantastic, fun evening with some delicious food.”

Sandra hands me a bowl of glistening chicken soup, two golf ball-sized matzo balls bobbing within. “Jewish food is comfort food,” says Ivan, who made the masterful broth. “Food to Jewish people is socialising, it’s family,” Andrew butts in. “It’s talking across the table. There’s never a time when there’s not food.”

The Lesters are a family steeped in what they call “Jewish soul food”. Ivan makes one of the best chicken soups around, but salt beef is their calling, and they’ve invited me to their home in Loughton, to the northeast of London, to talk about it. From their Borough Market stall, Nana Fanny’s, they pump out more than 1,000 salt beef sandwiches, on bagel or rye, per week.

“Salt beef was a method of preservation before refrigeration, it goes back generations,” says Andrew. To both preserve and tenderise tough cuts of meat – typically brisket in Jewish salt beef – beef has long been brined before being boiled.

Many cultures have a tradition of preserving meat in salt – the protracted shelf life of salted beef made it popular with the British merchant navy, Andrew explains. But the tender strips of delicately cured and gently spiced brisket we know and love today? “Predominantly it was eastern European Jews that came to this country and brought their favourite foods,” explains Andrew, whose ancestors hail from Russia and Poland.

Ivan tells me he adds saltpetre, sugar, garlic, peppercorns, bay, star anise and mustard seeds to the brine. “I won’t tell you the quantities,” he says, guarding a deep-rooted family secret. The beef is turned regularly before being boiled for a few hours. The whole process can take up to three weeks.

Ivan was born in London in 1944, by which time his mother Sarah and grandmother Fanny had long been making salt beef. According to family legend, Fanny had a barrow on Brick Lane from which she’d sell meat cured at their home on nearby Hanbury Street. She passed on her recipe to her daughter, creating a dynasty of which Andrew is the fourth generation. Andrew remembers going to his grandmother Sarah’s house, and “you’d never go and there wouldn’t be salt beef. Like someone might have their signature roast dinner. We were brought up with salt beef, we probably have salted blood.”

That certainly could be true for Ivan, who was a foodie from the off. “Being nosy and loving food, I got involved and started helping to brine it from an early age,” he tells me. Ivan trained as a chef and worked at gentlemen’s clubs in the West End, and hotels including The Savoy, before turning to street food vans and market stalls as far afield as Cambridge and Folkestone. They sold burgers but salt beef was always their specialty. “I always say Dad is the inventor of street food,” Andrew jokes. “He was serving food on the street before the phrase ‘street food’ existed.”

Ivan has been selling it for six decades and is one of London’s few masters of the art (most places that sell it buy salt beef produced by specialists, including Nana Fanny’s). Over six decades, his recipe has barely changed, save for a recent reduction in salt. But the equipment has. Ivan used to brine the brisket in an enamel baby bath in his garage – modern health and safety standards have put paid to that.

The Lesters ran long-established stalls at Exmouth and Broadway Markets, but Borough was always the dream, and 12 years ago they finally opened. Salt beef is synonymous with London, rarely seen elsewhere in the country, and for Andrew, offering a product of such important cultural heritage at one of the city’s oldest food markets is key. “We’re doing something that’s very much part of our culture, and people seem to like it. It’s nothing more than that, we’re no frills.” Here, visitors can enjoy stacked rye bread or bagel sandwiches, with pickles and strong English mustard balancing the fatty, salty meat.

Talking of which, my soup is finished and Ivan hands me a beautifully arranged platter of blushing-pink salt beef. The meat is delicate as a feather, with a buttery texture and a slightly fatty flavour that lingers wonderfully in the mouth. The meat pulls apart with ease and you can see air pockets where the fat has rendered down – the sign of good salt beef, says Andrew. Alongside sweet, sour, crunchy dill pickles, sinus-clearing mustard and soft, pillowy challah, it’s heaven.

We move on to the honey cake. It’s light, mildly sweet, comfortingly simple. The Lesters tell me about the importance of upholding Jewish traditions, how their grandchildren love celebrating Chanukah, how each festival comes with culinary symbolism, from Chanukah’s oily latkes to Passover’s seder plate with its array of foods. This year there are 20 family members coming for Rosh Hashanah, which coincides with Ivan’s 80th birthday. After the prayers and sweet treats there may be Ivan’s chopped liver (“the best in the world,” says Sandra), chicken soup, roast chicken and perhaps some of that special salt beef.

“Any excuse to have a celebration,” says Andrew. “Even without the festivals, every Friday night is a festival, because you’re with your family, eating, drinking, and you’ll always end up rolling out.”