Is it just me or does Christmas food in UK feature a lot of sausages?

[NalPolishRemover]

I love reading through the what's on your Christmas dinner plate thread & the what did you prep on Christmas eve & it struck me how much sausage meat features in so many people's festive food.

Lots of pigs in blankets & pork stuffing & pork stuffing balls & sausage rolls being made & eaten it seems.

I grew up in Ireland & this was really not a thing at all for us. We might have had a cooked breakfast that featured sausages if we were eating dinner in the evening but not every year & that would be it.

Our stuffing was always breadcrumbs, onion, butter & mixed herbs. Never meat.

We did not put bacon on the top of the turkey

Our sprouts did not have bacon in them

We didn't eat sausages as part of our dinner, not as pigs in blankets nor in any other form.

Sausages rolls played no part in our festivities.

It just struck me as unusual how similar so many elements of our celebrations are & yet so different in so many small ways

I'm married into a part English family but can't adopt their love of sausage meat at Christmas!

No pigs in blankets here in Canada. It is too hard to get good sausages really.

DH grew up in England post WW II and he had never heard of pigs in blankets when I asked him after reading about them here.

I am making Brussels sprouts in the air fryer with maple syrup (not very much) and a few slices of good bacon chopped up. Hoping that will jazz them up enough for the barely-tolerated sprouts eaters.

I have made sausage meat stuffing but not this year. DH loves loves loves sage and onion.

I’m 55 and we had them as long as I can remember with Christmas dinner and cranberry and apple sauce. We’ve never put bacon on the turkey and stuffing is always sage and onion no pork.

Only recent addition is chestnuts or walnuts in sprouts

I remember having chipolatas and bacon rolls with our Turkey
This is a history of them metro.co.uk/2015/12/20/the-history-of-everything-on-your-christmas-dinner-plate-5571829/#:~:text=The%20earliest%20written%20record%20of%20pigs%20in%20blankets,it%20possible%20to%20cook%20food%20in%20different%20ways.

I don't like "pigs in blankets", I don't think it does the pig OR the blanket any favours, but tiny sausages and crisp streaky bacon rolls are the best part of the meal for me, along with stuffing and the roast potatoes of course.

DH is Irish and his family Christmas dinner was just like yours, OP, but with no roast potatoes, just mash Definitely nothing sausage related, but there would be ham.

My English Christmas dinner featured chipolata sausages but no ham, ordinary sage and onion stuffing and crispy little bacon rolls on cocktail sticks.

DH and I have amalgamated our two traditions. We include ham, roast potatoes, chipolata sausages, bacon rolls and the recent addition of Yorkshire puddings. It's the best of both worlds.

@DramaAlpaca we had years where we just had mash too & no roast potatoes

It was easier to make mash on the hob than to juggle with timings in the too full oven.

I could never have Christmas dinner now without roast potatoes & I don't bother wotj mash at all.

Today we had:

Turkey
Brown sugar & Dijon mustard glazed ham
Roast potatoes
Maple roasted carrots & parsnips
Spiced red cabbage
Brussels sprouts with bacon!
Marrowfat peas
Sage & onion stuffing
Turkey gravy (m&s - was nice)
Cranberry sauce

Followed by
Sherry trifle
Ben & Gerrys for the teen or Colin the caterpillar

Lots of lovely wine

@LoveFall

No pigs in blankets here in Canada. It is too hard to get good sausages really.

DH grew up in England post WW II and he had never heard of pigs in blankets when I asked him after reading about them here.

I am making Brussels sprouts in the air fryer with maple syrup (not very much) and a few slices of good bacon chopped up. Hoping that will jazz them up enough for the barely-tolerated sprouts eaters.

I have made sausage meat stuffing but not this year. DH loves loves loves sage and onion.

You gotta love the men sometimes. Just put together the brussels sprouts with maple and bacon. DH was quite disappointed I did not wrap the bacon around each sprout.

Um, no. I draw the line at wrapping bacon around individual sprouts.
😃

Pigs in blankets were never part of my Christmas meal growing up in the 80s / 90s, but we did have sausagemeat and (separate) stuffing - usually Paxo. Never any potatoes other than roast and the thought of mash with roast is a bit strange to me.

I think the turkey had pork belly strips rather than bacon (to keep it moist) but that never made it to the table as all the men in the family suddenly became very interested in the kitchen!

I don’t know when they became ubiquitous. We have them if it comes as part of a package but none of us are that fussed, really.

We have always had red cabbage as a side to the Christmas Eve ham, though.