to think starters with Christmas dinner are superfluous?

[thatsgotit]

Just what the thread title says, really. How does anyone manage to do full justice to a turkey dinner if they've had their appetite blunted by a starter beforehand? (I do realise not everyone has turkey or even a roast, obviously, but I'm mainly talking here about those who do.)

This might be partly a generational thing, but personally I'd much rather leave myself more room to enjoy the main (and some Christmas pudding afterwards, which again I realise not everyone has) and it wouldn't even occur to me to plan a starter for Christmas Day. It just feels entirely superfluous. Surely I'm not the only one?

I agree. I don't even have breakfast because I need all the stomach space for my roast turkey lunch.

Our tea in the evening is often the Christmas pudding because no one can manage dessert straight after lunch.

I should probably add it's no starters and a delayed dessert because I eat an absolutely enormous Christmas dinner portion and I'm totally stuffed. No competitive under eating here, especially on Christmas day.

Our Christmas meal is spread over the whole of the day from lunch onwards so that essentially the starter is a light lunch, the main course is dinner then a late supper of cheese and Christmas pudding. We do have long pauses between courses.

Teeny weeny prawn cocktail for a starter is what you want

We do the starter (prawn cocktail) at supper time, with a cheese board and the dessert.

Maybe a few snack bowls out whilst cooking, but Christmas lunch itself is just the ‘main’.

That's what we do too.

ah sorry I misunderstood, I thought you meant you were having starters for lunch as well as your lunch therefore making 2 courses but I now realise you meant to have the starters only for lunch which is fine

Have a slightly smaller starter and smaller dinner and pudding rather than trying to gorge yourself all the way through.

The concept of the starter is that you can eat foods that are incompatible with the main course, so you can enjoy different tastes and flavour. Eg prawn cocktail does not go well with gravy.

This is not rocket science.

Is he in Yorkshire? It’s definitely a Yorkshire thing

True, but not intended on my part, fwiw. I'm Gen X and haven't personally experienced starters being served when Christmas dinner is cooked at home, and I guess that's made me see it as a fairly recent trend. Interesting to hear some people were doing it decades ago!

OK. Thanks for explaining food to me.

I grew up often having two starters on Christmas Day plus a choice of puddings and a cheese course. It doesn't feel like a feast if you only have one or two courses. Practically, it also makes the bird go further if you have lots of guests and everyone has more courses but smaller servings of each.

We always have 3 courses in a family style serving. You can indulge if you want. Now what I don’t understand is people that have full on buffets at night time. How do you have the room?

Any time. I'm sure an expert will be along to explain it better. A lot of chefs are very under appreciated in this regard.

To me in set dining the aim of multiple courses is not an always an opportunity to eat as much as possible (maybe this was the case in medieval times), more to correctly separate out more subtle tastes. It also gives the chef the ability to be creative and complimentary between and within courses.

Ditto the drinks, with the aperitif, the main course wine (don't know the correct name for this is), the dessert wine and the digestif.

I would always prefer to have more smaller courses than only one course because you get to try a greater range of tastes and creations. I love salmon, but also turkey and cheese. They don't go together that well in a single course. Also people prefer different things, so the course concept gives more opportunity for different people to enjoy their favourite.

A talented chef will normally arrange it so a correct amount of food is served at each course rather than a massive heavy blow out on course 2 which ruins the appetite for any further courses, and of course you have the ability to limit your consumption.

I think this highlights the difference between those who find food to be an experience and those who don’t.

I have no interest in any of that and just want to eat something nice before moving onto something much more interesting. I also can’t manage a lot of food (often limited to one course) and that suits me just fine. In fact, lots of different dishes often make me nauseous. (I shudder at the memory of the first and only time I tried tapas.)

I thought the same as @FollowSpot about your "generational" comment. I was born in 1957, so grew up in the 1960's. Absolutely no ordinary household would've done a starter before Christmas dinner (or any dinner) back then. In fact hardly anyone ever ate out, so most people thought a "starter" was something mysterious that the French ate.

I’m 46 and we’ve always had three + course meals for special occasions. I’m from a big family who are all good home cooks, though. And greedy, to boot. We also have desserts most days.

I lived in France for five years and we would have a three course meal every day for lunch in our canteen. Sometimes with wine!

Yes, most of these concepts (apart from when to have which wine - I have what I want when I want it) are things I can and do enjoy at other times of the year, albeit only when eating out as I hate cooking and like to keep it simple.

But where Christmas dinner is concerned, this may horrify you but I don't care about concepts, subtleties, which wine is considered correct to have at which point in the meal, or a 'greater range of tastes and creations'. I just want a nice big plateful of turkey and the usual trimmings followed by some Christmas pudding. Feel free to call me a pleb, but that's what I like.

Oh, and I do limit my consumption - I limit it for most of Christmas Day, in fact, in anticipation of the above mentioned nice big plateful of turkey and Christmas pudding.

As far as I'm concerned the correct amount of food is the amount he person wants, and the correct foods and drinks to consume are - surprise, surprise! - the ones the person wants. Maybe I'm just unsophisticated, but if so, guess how much I care about that?

Blimey, have what you want! Whether it’s a 6-course meal or a MacDonalds burger. It’s entirely up to you, but there’s nothing wrong with having a starter - one year we had appetisers, starter, main dinner, sorbet, Christmas trifle and a cheeseboard! It did pass about 6 hours of our day, though…

This is the exact point.

If I was doing Christmas lunch on Italy I'd do 4 courses 😄 (but no big roast).

When we do an English Christmas dinner we do canapés, main and pudding. The canapés are mainly needed to stop the children eating too many Christmas chocolates as they wait for lunch and going doolally - they can eat some prosciutto and crackers or a little bit of cheese and cucumber instead.

Neither my family or inlaws ever serve starters either and I grew up in 70s

We have a starter around 12. Smoked salmon or prawn cocktail. Roast will be around 2. Dessert around 4 and cheese board around 6. One meal that lasts all day and you have time to digest in-between courses.

Yes. We contemplate having a first course (just crab salad with a few leaves etc) every year, and decide against it. It really gets in the way of the dishing up of a roast dinner. I don't mind missing it - but I need more pairs of hands in the last 10 mins and it would be pointless to have just a couple of people sitting eating their first course while all hell broke loose in the kitchen.

Different topic, but I HATE men who come to dinner (at other times) and stuff themselves with nuts and other nibbles and then can't fit in the other courses.

I have learned the hard way, and never put out any highly calorific nibbles now - nuts in particular. My husband will just shovel them in and then, 20 mins later, is absolutely stuffed.

This will be the first year for starters for us.
We are off on holiday and so are booked into the restaurant there and I have ordered bruschetta, beef and Yorkshire puds (I don’t like turkey) and a chocolate something for dessert. My husband is on a lemon prawn truffle paste thing, beef and a mango pineapple tart thing. DC1 was bruschetta and turkey with chocolate beignets and DC2 is the same except Pate to start.
I don’t think a slice of tomato and mozarella on a piece of bruschetta is going to be too filling? Likewise the pate. My husband can eat everything anyway.