Stuff the turkey: try capon or partridge for Christmas

‘It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped ’em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.’ (A Christmas Carol.)

And there is exactly the problem with festive fowl. In most cases, we get turkey. And usually we get it far too big, which leads to all the problems of using the thing up over the course of a week. It may have been fine for Bob Cratchit’s large family but for most people, the mammoth turkey isn’t the way to go. A turkey is a fine bird (one of the trinity of actually useful things, with potatoes and tomatoes, to come out of the European discovery of America) – but it’s not the only option. There are other pre-turkey traditions and some new ones worth thinking about for the Christmas season – I mean, over 12 whole days you can’t eat turkey every day.