Sam Mannering

Sam Mannering is a chef at Pah Homestead in Auckland and a regular contributor to Sunday magazine and Stuff. What is your favourite Christmas food memory from childhood?

We have an odd tradition in our family to ban bread sauce on any other occasion other than Christmas Day. I am uncompromisingly obsessed with the stuff, so this is cruel, and I spend the rest of the year dreaming about it, but when Christmas finally comes around, it is all on. Summer pudding is another – it was my grandmother’s favourite dessert and always a feature at Christmas.

What will you be cooking this Christmas?

I like to keep it special, but simple. Oysters, with lemon. Champagne. Whitebait perhaps, on soft buttered white bread with lemon. Probably a turkey – or a game bird – something that suits bread sauce and a sweet fruit jelly and a few leaves. A glazed spiced ham. Very little carbs or sides – they take up valuable space. Pudding, of course, is another matter – trifle, Christmas pud, summer pudding – the whole gluttonous shebang.

What’s one tip you have for the Christmas table?

Good oysters – Mahurangi, Te Matuku, Clevedon. Bit of lemon. Champagne. That’s your starter right there.

What do you drink on Christmas Day?

Champagne, a good dry mix of Pimm’s (should never be too sweet, always make with dry ginger ale, NOT lemonade, with lots of bitters, mint, cucumber, strawberries and orange). Not much else. Pays not to mix things up too much.

What and where would your ultimate fantasy three-course Christmas dinner be?

In spite of the strange ritualistic, nonsensical, gastronomic trauma of eating a midwinter dinner in the middle of a hot summer, I couldn’t imagine Christmas without it – and so it would pretty much be what I plan to cook anyway.

As for the location, perhaps to be back in Holbox on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, where I was at the start of this ridiculous year before being bundled back down into lockdown.

How has your 2020 been in six words?

Completely f...ing tediously horrifying and traumatic.

‘‘I like to keep it special, but simple.’’