The new victim of culture wars? Christmas lunch!

Daniel Hambury
Melanie McDonagh14 December 2021
WEST END FINAL

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Celebrations at Christmas have varied over time. The main thing has always been to eat and drink to excess to celebrate the Nativity, but just what we eat and drink has changed.

Turkeys only came on the scene when Europeans discovered America, before that it was roast goose. In medieval England, a nice hog’s head made a catchy table centrepiece. A Christmas feast hosted by Henry V featured carp, prawns, turbot, tench, sturgeon with whelks, porpoise, crayfish, roasted eels, dates in cream, boar, meats garnished with hawthorn leaves and marzipan. But really our idea of a festive meal is more or less the same as Scrooge’s: an enormous turkey with all the trimmings and then Christmas pudding, ideally shaped like a cannonball.

That is, until Gen Z came along with its indifference to tradition, veganism and global menus. It’s dispiriting at the best of times, at this time of year, it spells the end of the family Christmas meal. Sainsbury’s commissioned a survey of 2,000 Brits and found 84 per cent of Gen Z would rather eat something non-traditional, such as curry, fried chicken and pizza. By comparison, more than 80 per cent of oldies, 74 years-plus, much prefer the turkey, roast potatoes, Brussels sprouts scenario. Put those two groups together and what have you got? Familial civil war. Or that Venn diagram where the only overlap between the generations is roast potatoes, and then only if they’re done in olive oil.

The result of this pick’n’mix approach is that the average household is, it seems, serving multiple main dishes, which almost certainly means that the chef of the house — already timing all the other elements of the meal, while resting the turkey — will have to rustle up another alternative main course as well. And you thought Christmas cooking was stressful?

Sainsbury’s obviously has spotted a consumer trend. Its response is pigs in snowy blankets sushi and Brussels sprout bhajis.

This has got to stop. Younger members of the family will just have to lump it and eat up their turkey, sprouts and roast potatoes, and vegetarians can pass on the meat. In return for presents, a compromise on the Christmas food isn’t much to ask, is it?

Would you prefer something other than a traditional Christmas lunch? Let us know in the comments below.

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