To miss the simple tasty Christmas food of my childhood.

[NotSoGloriousFood]

I'm old enough to remember Christmas family gatherings when mum didn't have the option of going to Iceland or M&S and everyone pitched in.
Simple but tasty spreads of homecooked meats, cheese, uncle Kens legendary pickled onions, Aunty's Gloria's beetroot chutney, Mary's green tomato chutney and pickled red cabbage, cheese (usually cheddar and Caerfilly) and homemade pasties and sausage rolls. Crisps were ready salted.
It was tasty, wholesome and real.
Desserts were all homemade. chocolate cakes, mince pies, trifle, Christmas cake.
Simple food shared together......no-one could forsee then what food would become.........ultra processed with long lists of ingredients.
I watch some of the Christmas food adverts with a heavy heart and wonder what we have done to food.

😂

😂

I'm disabled with a high support needs disabled teen. No support. I get everything from Aldi and it cost £50 .

Were not all privileged enough to be able to cook everything from scratch, but my children have never complained about the Christmas I manage to give, which falls entirely to me to provide.

I do home made sausage rolls. Literally just puff pastry with sausage meat and half a jar of apple sage or sausage meat and half a jar of cranberry sauce And some grated orange rind. A lovely home baked ham. Pickled cabbage. Home made coleslaw. Home made sourdough or focaccia. A huge fancy trifle and cheese cake. ITs Brilliant and I love it ♥️

What about the Sara Lee Black Forest one?

Have you had a bad day today?

I do know what you mean, OP. I'm from a different country and the meat, fruit, butter, cream, veg all taste completely different there. The difference is incredible.

Honestly. I think distance and time lend enchantment here. But as people have said, you can always make your own. Christmas food was a lot of time consuming hard work for mothers in most families.

Well, there's no point wailing about societal change unless you have answers?

The problem is, there's no science to the debate. Auntie Joan's trifle was wonderful, kind of thing. You can make Auntie Joan's trifle but it won't taste the same because you aren't 15 in 1983 or whatever. It's far more to do with the idea of something than the actuality.

My chief memories of 'home made Christmas food' was my mum spending hours in the kitchen, losing her temper, refusing to let anyone help but swearing about how much she had to do and thoroughly spoiling the mood of Christmas, year after year.

I made up my mind never to fall into that trap.

Meh I am 49 and we absolutely had a Sarah Lee gateaux or veinetta alongside the home made trifle (using bought lady fingers) things are grander and more expensive but pretty similar butchers are busy everyone reads good food and tries to make stuff frim
scratch with Jamie and nigella it’s not any different really.

With a cheeseboard and celery?

You don’t have to eat the supermarket Christmas food if you don’t want to. I’ve started going a lot more basic with mine. Not because I’m scared of UPFs but because I find the fancy looking Christmas food never tastes as good as it looks. I usually do a buffet on Christmas Eve. I’ll roast a ham, get in some cheese and crackers, brioch, pâté, those little satay chicken sticks, Pringles, dips, that sort of thing. Mince pies are really easy to make by the way and you can freeze them.

I assume you're feeding hoards of people BlueEyedBogWitch. I stopped making Christmas cakes years ago as the three of us simply can't eat it all. Ditto Christmas puds. I'm a 50s baby and I remember my mother painstakingly preparing mince pies, Christmas Cake and puddings and sausage rolls. It was really hard work, let's remember that. She did make a mean cake but it would all be far too much for us now. I don't make jams and chutneys for the same reason and I suspect others are the same.
Obviously UPF isn't great but most people are just doing the best they can on limited resources.

Some homemade stuff is good and some is awful. Just because it is homemade doeesn't make it great.

Some supermarket stuff is great and others not so great.

At the moment I am looking at the two ends of the scale, Aldi and M&S and they both look fantastic.

Aldis seafood looks great to me. I won't be hooking any of that out of my pond and water butt.

Nope!

Cake is just for DH, and I make one for my brother’s family too.
Mincemeat I love, and I make mince pies, use it in crumble and in baked apples.
The jam tarts and lemon curds are for my DSes and DH.
The chutney is from summer’s green tomatoes and was made months ago.

I just really like cooking for Christmas!

Really? Nobody is allowed to complain about anything without knowing the solution? Apologies , I missed that memo

Fair point but just seems a bit looking back at previous times as though they were perfect. They weren’t.

That sounds as though you have sons and a husband to eat your lovely food.

😂 (need this reaction emoji back!)

Weird comment stating the obvious. But recently I have lost family and several friends and it makes me sad.

and the time to do it all.

I bloody love processed food.

I’m lucky, I do have a fair bit of time. I did the cakes this Sunday just gone, which took all afternoon. The mincemeat only takes a couple of hours, though.