Spectator Competition: Season’s eatings

Comp. 3379 invited you to submit a contribution to a collection of Christmas recipes by fictional characters. This is a festive version of one you made earlier, and it turned out well again. There were a couple of Ancient Mariners and Macbeth covens – special mention for Max Ross’s Christmas cauldron with its ‘badger’s head and reindeer’s toes, robin’s beak and snowman’s nose.’ A few gave meal plans rather than recipes, but George Simmers’s J. Alfred Prufrock deserves to be quoted anyway:

In the room the ladies come and go,

Preparing to watch The Gruffalo.

There was a certain amount of cannibalism, courtesy of Paul Freeman’s Hannibal Lecter and David Silverman’s Titus Andronicus, and Sylvia Fairley’s dish of Revenge served cold was not totally Christmassy. Jonathan White’s/Mr Darcy’s Spiced Regency Punch soundedactually pretty good, but some truly disgusting concoctions abounded. The winners below receive £25. Thanks for all your lovely entries over the year, and happy Christmas.

Chef molesworth of the ritz enters kitchen to make klasic xmas puding. Like nigella coo i mean gosh when she buters the basin yor pater is suddenly keen on t.v. Out puding basin mixing bowl wisk droping most on floor. Zoom about chuck 1700 currants, 5000 sultanas eggs sugar breadcrumbs flour spices into bowl before molesworth 2 eat the lot. Drop pans use friteful langwage hem-hem. Slosh in 6 cups brandy bash it all together, plop in sixpence for pater to brake tooth on, wrap puding in cloth, boil 60 hours tied in string. Wash up crash bang smash tinkle. To serv, add weedy sprig of holly, pour over 6 more cups brandy. Set on fire wizz wizz. Xplosion burns pater’s eyebrows off. Taste your kreation. ‘Rich, well-flavoured, signifficant,’ all sa. Pour on custard and cream, save slice for dere santa. Accept cordon bleu paris gold medal 1899.

Janine Beacham

Traditional Sprout, followed by Humbug Surprise.

Like most right-thinking people I detest these so-called festive indulgences, but my annual accounts this year revealed an unexpected surplus of one half-penny, which could (if I so wished) be wasted on the following. Observing Christmas foods, I note that brussels sprouts are served, possibly as penance. A farthing will purchase one sprout. Boil it for about two hours to reduce it to pulp. Do not serve on Christmas Day if it is a weekday, and thus for working, but wait until the next Sunday, when it will be cold. Like revenge, brussels sprouts are best served cold. If there must be dessert, the remaining farthing will purchase a single striped peppermint-flavoured boiled sweet. This should be sucked for about two minutes, then set aside until the next day. With care it can be enjoyed for a surprisingly long time.

Brian Murdoch (Scrooge’s Christmas Special)

First yer mun rub yer bod all ower wi’ butter til th’ skin is slippery ter th’ touch, payin’ particlar attention to th’ breast. Then knead yer forcemeat til yer get th’ right consistency an’ thrust it int’ cavity betweenth’ legs as ’aard as it will go. Stuff at both ends if yer desire it. Then give yer bod a good roasting, ’appen yer’ll want to do it quick and hot or slow and low to keep the flesh nice an’ moist. Yer know it’s done when th’ juices run clear around th’ thighs and th’ legs art splayed. Then yer can pull on th’ wishbone. Let yer bod rest afterwards. Theer art some as says that ’ow yer roast yer bod can make th’ flesh more tender an’ succulent; breast bare, breast covered, upside down, legs int’ air, spatchcock. All I know is, her ladyship likes ’em all.

Sue Pickard (Oliver Mellors roasting a turkey – or some other bird)

Ach! sss! Chrisssmass! We wants a special, gollum, tasting of holly, of poisonous red berries, of curated mistletoe, that’s why we feeds the bats, Smeagol catches them, I catches them, yess, yess, hangs them downside up, gollum, O yes. First catch your duo of bats. Smeagol can forage them, nice plump organic bats, he can wash them, yesss, in a rich water marinade, until they is fresh as a fen, nice and slippery, yes, yes, like worms. What’s the next step, we wonders, gollum, oh feed the bat with fish, my precious. Not to taste too strong of fish, if we has fish, brush it against the bat, whisky-cured trout, we has it, from Markssssies, soak the tonsils of bat, we wants it fresh and unctuouss! Now deconstruct your bats, gollum, Smeagol does so, yesss, elevated to new level, with espuma of creeping river. Raw! Chopped! We wants it!

Bill Greenwell (Smeagol/Gollum’s Yule bat tartare)

My beloved Jip and I were so eager to please poor darling Daisy that we made up this silly recipe for his favourite leftover turkey soup. First, smile your sweetest smile at the grumpy butcher and he will gladly provide a suitably leftover bird. I cried at our turkey’s forlornness, begging Cook make it comfy by warming it for hours and hours in the oven. Then, Jip – who got very naughtily over-excited – was given the turkey to play with. When Jip had quite finished turning leftover turkey into turkey left-overs, we threw lots of things into a stockpot – there were onions, barley, chickpeas, stock, and oh, I fell asleep. I got muddled about timings and ingredients, so when my Daisy got a crinkly mouth but said he knew I’d made the soup with love, I feared we may not have put any in. Please be sure you do.

Adrian Fry (Dora Spenlow, David Copperfield)

‘You’ve captured your snark,’ so the Bellman cried

‘And now you’ll be cooking the beast

With mussels and Brussels and bits on the side,

To furnish a fine Christmas feast

‘To make it more tender, you give it some laldy,

Then stuff it with kumquats and figs

And drench it with brandy you’ve purchased from Aldi

Or flank it with blankets of pigs.

‘The flavour of snark can be meagre and hollow

So bake it in prawn-flavoured crisps,

With bandersnatch sauce for a nice tasty swallow

And rhubarb sliced into thin wisps.

‘Then serve it with chervil, mock turtle and yam,

The pluck and the zest of a rook,

And wash it all down with hot raspberry jam.

Thus the diners: “Three cheers for the cook!”’

Frank Upton