Eat and be merry

Treat your taste buds to some seasonal exotica, says ELISABETH LUARD

Hog heaven

Go the full whole acorn-fattened hog with Brindisa’s salt-cured, wind-dried, aged-in-cellar haunch of Iberico pata

negra, Spain’s must-have Christmas treat. Pata negra means ebony trotter – though not all have black feet – and you can tell it on the hook by narrowness of ankle and slenderness of thigh. The fragrance is sun-blitzed hay meadow, the texture velvety and buttery, the flavour spicy and nutty, with a back note of truffle. To appreciate the full magnificence, slice from the bone with the grain in lonchas (short curls) and include a frill of mouth-happy golden fat. Go for the real thing with Brindisa’s luscious Iberico de Bellota at £495 with stand and knife. Its Trevelez Serrano – top ham-curing area, lesser breed, not so picky diet – comes in at a more modest £185, including carving kit. www.brindisa.com

In cod they trust

Keep your powder dry on the Eve as they do in Provence with a fasting supper of salt cod, plain boiled veg and absolutely no wine till the clock’s struck twelve. Have an easy time of it with salt cod ready-soaked from The Fish Society – you can eat it raw so no need for lengthy cooking – and serve with potatoes, carrots and industrial quantities of garlicky aioli. On the other hand – trust the sybaritic Lyonnais to combine a penitential fast-day food with olive oil and cream – prepare it as brandade de morue, a scooping purée so delicious it has a stall all to itself in Paul Bocuse’s Les Halles. www.thefishsociety.co.uk

A wheel treat

There’s no need to bake your own mince pies when you’ve stocked up with M’hencha’s Moroccan snail cake, a coiled wheel of crisp, buttery filo (actually Moroccan brik – different technique, similar result) filled with almond and orange frangipane, dates and cinnamon. M’hencha’s Award Winners Pack at£19.95 includes a 15cm snail cake ( pictured above) plus four individual pistachio and rosewater pastries. Its three-tier party pyramid (almonds, lemon, rosewater) serves 30 and comes in at £50. Order ahead and freeze – reheating works a treat. Oldies get a 10 per cent discount with the code TOM16 until 21st December (don’t leave it too late as everything’s baked to order). www.themhenchacompany.co.uk

Sweetly Spanish

Entertain holiday drop-ins with almond-and-honey turrón – Spanish nougat – and other Christmas goodies packed in a jute shopper from my favourite Spanish importer, Ultracomida, in Aberystwyth. Its Oldie Christmas special sweet treats hamper ( left) includes tarta de Santiago (a lusciously rich almond sponge cake), quince paste, two squishily sticky cakes of almond-studded dried fruits (apricot and fig), and flaky crispbreads crusted with caramelised

sugar and aniseed to dip in deliciously sludgy drinking chocolate on Boxing Day (it’s a hangover cure). It costs £52.50 for the lot, including delivery, when you tap in OLDIE16 (giving a £7 saving for Oldie readers; valid to 31st December). www.ultracomida.co.uk

Bronze winners

Go wild with an island-bred bird from Barra in the Inner Hebrides, where Craig and Maria Michie raise traditional breeds of slow-growing, bronze-feathered turkeys which forage for insects, clover, home-gown cereals and orchard pickings around their farm. The result is a firm-fleshed bird with an almost gamey depth of flavour very different from the usual cottonwool fluff. Order on the website for delivery on 23rd December wrapped in greaseproof paper, boxed and ovenready with a sprig of herbs and pop-up thermometer. Choose your weight and price. As a rough guide, a 5-6kg bird will feed 10-12 for £83 including delivery (UK only). www.barrabronzes.co.uk

Spice exploration

Treat your best-beloved to a mindexpanding three-month subscription to The Spicery, supplier of freshly ground-to-order blends to the likes of Heston Blumenthal, Ottolenghi and Rick Stein. Its World Kitchen Explorer delivers its own choice of exotic blends suitable for two meals for two people at £19.95 for three once-a-month deliveries. The pre-paid voucher allows the lucky recipient to swap one month’s choice for another on the website. And they’ll send you the first box to your own address so you can deliver it in person or wrap it up and pop it under the tree. All will become clear when you go to the website. www.thespicery.com

Sea veg surprise

This year’s gastronomic must-have (I’m sure you already know) is seaweed. The problem is what to do with it when you get it – beyond, that is, sushi wrappers, laverbread and carragheen moss (as the vegetarian gelatine). Help is at hand from Scottish shore-gatherer Mara Seaweed, pioneer in dried, flaked, ready-to-use sea veg. It’s fabulously healthy and possibly slimming, but the real joy is the palate-stimulating umami whack that comes when you stir or sprinkle it on anything from the breakfast boiled egg to the Sunday roast to chocolate cake. Dip in a toe with Mara’s £17.95 threetin gift set, then take the plunge with founding forager Xa Milne’s Seaweed

Cookbook (Michael Joseph £16.99). www.maraseaweed.com

Food of love

The French habit of consuming stupendous quantities of oysters on New Year’s Eve serves much the same purpose as the kiss under the mistletoe, the medieval equivalent of the dating app. All becomes clear when you consider that oysters, known to be aphrodisiac, can be held to encourage procreation at a time when the earth needs persuasion to return to fertility. As a result, from mid-december onwards, the succulent crustaceans are sold by the crate outside every supermarket the length and breadth of France. In the light of Brexit and the need for our pirate nation to repel boarders, secure your own four dozen gigas with oyster knife at £68.15 from Loch Fyne Oysters. www.lochfyne.com

Wonderful waffles

Drop-in guests, always a hazard over the festive season, can be painlessly accommodated by laying in stocks of Tregroes’ buttery Belgian waffles to serve with coffee. They are plain or chocolate-dipped, spiced with cinnamon, softish but chewy, sandwiched together in pairs with toffee-caramel. The plain ones are delicious with a ladleful of mulled wine, while the ones dipped in chocolate – dark or milk – make a gorgeous dessert with a plain vanilla or rum-and-raisin ice cream. The snack-pack assortment includes all three versions for £15 including delivery. www.tregroeswaffles.co.uk

The big blue

Half a whole Stichelton – a raw-milk Stilton-type blue made in Nottinghamshire that famously wasn’t allowed to call itself Stilton – will carry you and yours right through the cheese course (not to mention midnight munchies) from Christmas Eve to Twelfth Night. The quintessentially English farmhouse blue was restored to its original nutty, spicy glory a dozen years ago by artisan cheesemaker Joe Schneider in collaboration with cheese

affineurs at Neal’s Yard. To pot up the last scrapings, whizz in the processor with its own volume of just-melted butter, a splash of brandy and a shake of Tabasco. At £78 for about 3.8kg of unpasteurised perfection, including delivery, you won’t regret it. www.nealsyarddairy.co.uk