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Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

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« A Christmas Tree Long Weekend
Audible.com »

A Foodie Christmas Carol

December 8, 2016 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

As you know, we’re listening to Tim Curry’s performance of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and we’ve just heard the most glorious description of dinner at Bob Cratchit’s house! The whole novella is available for free courtesy of Project Gutenberg if you’re looking for a festive read.

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In the meantime, pour a cup of tea, put your feet up and enjoy this foodie snippet…I hope you love it as much as we did!

. . . . .

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course—and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—too nervous to bear witnesses—to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose—a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily.

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Posted in Food & Friends | 17 Comments

17 Responses

  1. on December 8, 2016 at 11:40 am Jan

    Oh, such delight!! I’ve just read that aloud to myself, in an empty house, in front of my computer and my pile of work papers: just for the delight of it. I read A Christmas Carol every December. One December, a couple or three decades ago, I made my husband and his Mum, sit by candlelight while we took it in turns to read passages of the book. My mother-in-law, being elderly had the most wonderful voice for reading this story aloud. Thank you so much for the real pleasure, Celia – and “God Bless us, everyone”:)


  2. on December 8, 2016 at 11:41 am Joanne Vidal

    Wonderful!!!


  3. on December 8, 2016 at 4:34 pm Kim Bultman

    Hurrah and Hallo, Celia! Thanks for sharing this exquisite Foodie Christmas Carol. Words (and food) never tasted so good. Classic! xo


  4. on December 8, 2016 at 5:54 pm marilynscottwaters

    Deliciously lovely! Christmas Carol is such a good read.


  5. on December 8, 2016 at 6:11 pm themateriallady

    I have an ancient (and smelly!) old copy of The Christmas Stories by Dickens that I get out at this time of year. The font is tiny, and the paper very thin, but I love every minute reading it.
    Have a great build up to Christmas Celia!


    • on December 10, 2016 at 8:06 am Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

      Kim, thank you for telling me about The Christmas Stories, I didn’t know about them! I just bought an illustrated kindle copy for $1.58! Here’s the link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GNC2G1U/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

      The stories can also be downloaded for free individually at Project Gutenberg…

      https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=charles+dickens+christmas+stories


      • on December 11, 2016 at 7:45 pm themateriallady

        You are going to enjoy those Celia. Get a drink and settle in 😃


  6. on December 8, 2016 at 6:26 pm Beck @ Goldenpudding

    Beautiful Celia, I love A Christmas Carol too, and can only imagine how wonderful a Tim Curry version is :)


  7. on December 8, 2016 at 7:07 pm Claire

    Glorious. I had my first Christmas at home in 12 years last year. Ma cooked a goose whilst we were there just because. Hope it’s not another 12 years til we return – do people eat geese here? I’ve not seen one.


  8. on December 8, 2016 at 11:14 pm Daniel M. Pliska

    Love Goose for Christmas. However in the US they are not cheap $50 a bird.


    • on December 9, 2016 at 4:23 am Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

      $100 a bird here!!


  9. on December 8, 2016 at 11:43 pm Judy @Savoring Today

    I can picture all that bustle in the kitchen — it’s that, the commingling of hands and hearts preparing to feast. The heart is full long before the belly. Merry Christmas, Celia.


  10. on December 9, 2016 at 4:02 am Chica Andaluza

    Ah what bliss! I hated Dickens at school the rediscovered him in my twenties. Did you get the BBC Series they did last year…think it was called Dickensian, an imagination of all the “back stories” and characters…I loved it, thought it was very clever. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vbmfq


  11. on December 9, 2016 at 10:31 am Nancy |Plus Ate Six

    Wonderful! I love Dickens – he was often overlooked I think and yet his words are so evocative. Can’t you just see the knife going in to the goose and then the oohs and aaahs around the table. Just glorious.


    • on December 9, 2016 at 10:56 am Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

      Nance, you should hear Tim Curry read it! :) You’re an audible subscriber – the recording is just 99c on sale at the moment! :)

      http://www.audible.com/pd/Classics/A-Christmas-Carol-A-Signature-Performance-by-Tim-Curry-Audiobook/B002ZEEDAW/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1481244969&sr=1-1


  12. on December 10, 2016 at 3:45 pm Jan

    The Muppets clip is just gorgeous – silly thing made me cry! :)


    • on December 10, 2016 at 4:12 pm Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

      Oh I’m so glad you came back to this post and saw it! You know I added it just for you, right? 😘



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