This Christmas there will be no traditional pudding. After 11 years, I have finally learned my lesson
Sometimes I’m slow to learn life’s lessons. Never take an antibiotic on an empty stomach. Alternate water with wine if you don’t want a hangover. Keep a spare battery in my guitar case.
But I’ve finally learned that I am wasting my precious, and now limited, time making a Christmas pudding.
Somehow at this time of the year, we all become overwhelmed with the urge to buy 10 kilos of mixed fruit, a gallon of strong drink and start going all Nigella Lawson or, so help me … Ottolenghi!
Some background.
For years I had the honour of making the family Christmas pudding. It was a beauty too. You know the one – masses of mixed fruit, slivered almonds, lemon rind, stout, brandy – the works. This pudding was rock solid. If you had the misfortune of being shipwrecked on a desert island with no provisions, this dense pudding would sustain you for years. It had the heft of a medicine ball, and the richness of caviar, and I was always inordinately proud to turn it out of its calico cloth at Christmas lunch. It was usually accompanied by custard, cream and ice-cream of course.
So I’m not sure why I never noticed that no one ever ate it. Well, I did (because I loved it). And usually that year’s random guest at Christmas lunch (niece’s long-forgotten boyfriend, stranded business associate, homeless person) ate it out of gratitude and obligation. Oh, they all dutifully “oohed” and “aahed”, but that was the extent of it. Like when someone parachutes out of a plane. You can appreciate it, but you don’t want to do it.
I think in the early years, the only reason family members ate the pudding was to find the shiny threepences secreted within.
In recent years thought the pudding (sans two portions) would then sit in my fridge till around August, when I would sorrowfully consign it to the bin with a thud.
A few years ago, I took an unofficial poll of my family to discover that none of them actually liked the traditional Christmas pudding. Thanks for telling me, people. I worked it out – all up that’s about 11 years, eight months, two days and six and a half hours of my life I’ll never get back. Not to mention I would routinely spend the equivalent of the GDP of the federation of St Christopher and Nevis on the ingredients.
So I asked them what they would like instead. The unanimous answer came back: Nana’s custard slice. This is a family favourite my lovely Mum used to make. And maybe my chocolate pie. Got it.
So this Christmas there will be no randoms at the Wighton Christmas lunch. (Am I allowed to be secretly glad?) And there will be no traditional Christmas pudding either. I’m seriously thinking about dropping the obligatory Christmas cake too (the Wightons don’t seem to do “fruit”). My daughter is now living close by so we’ve devised a special Christmas menu that would satisfy the Grinch himself.
Be assured, we’ll have lots of Christmas fare – ham, chicken, turkey (stuffed of course), maybe prawns, “special” salads, chocolates and lollies. There’ll be bonbons of course (my daughter and I make them out of toilet rolls. This is a shared activity we discovered a couple of years ago when we forgot to buy bonbons. Such fun!), secret Santa, lashings of wine and merriment. And I must admit, Ottolenghi’s spiced nuts are looking pretty tasty.
But at the end of the lunch when people are clutching their straining stomachs and groaning with satisfaction, instead of the plum pudding, I’ll proudly produce my chocolate pie and Nana’s custard slice.
No more slaving over a pudding no one eats. I’ve finally learned my lesson.