Lighthearted: If you're not British, what's the Christmas food that you just can't eat?

[BetsyBobbins]

I've been in the UK 22 years now, but I can't still bring myself to eat some of the traditional British Christmas food. I tried them once and never again. Mind you, this is coming from someone who got used to, and now loves baked beans among other things. But Good Lord, what's up with the Victorian puddings and cakes?

Christmas pudding: Looks like Elephant poo, smells like stale booze and tastes like soil.

Christmas cake: More of the same. Looks horrid, smells weird and has an even worse texture, a mix of soil and sawdust. Plus, how can you trust something that was cooked months in advance? I don’t.

Mince pies: now, that is the worst of all. Looks good, I’ll give them that, but they smell like vomit and have the texture of baby sick.

Tell me the ones you never got used to

I don't think Christmas pudding, mince pies or Christmas cake have ever been cheap. In the Middle Ages they would have been extremely expensive, given that the key ingredients (dried fruit and spices) would have been imported from the Middle East or even further afield. They would have been the preserve of the rich and high status foods, and even then probably reserved for special occasions.

Something that's probably made a lot of difference is the arrival of fridges, freezers and refrigerated vans, ships and planes. It's not so essential to have a store cupboard full of long-keeping food preserved in sugar, alcohol, vinegar, salt, spices etc, or dried, to get you through the winter.

Banoffe is American, I think.

I am also not English, and I like mince pies and LOVE bread and butter pudding. I don't like pouring cream on desserts. But I DO like custard.

She says it's light hearted in the title. Everyone until your post had managed to take it in the lighthearted chatty way it was intended. Stop being offended on behalf of others for goodness sake.

Please don’t put words into my mouth that I didn’t say. At no point did I say I was ‘offended’.

Banoffe is American, I think.

Banoffee is British.

Don't know but British Marzipan (the stuff you buy at the baking ingredients aisle) is vile in my opinion.

We import (or buy in Germany) raw Marzipan and add just icing sugar to it and it tastes lovely. I once went to a bakery workshop in London for a Yule log and they used the same brand I buy in Germany for their marzipan decorations.

My uncle was a baker and while he taught me to make it from scratch with almonds, rose water and icing sugar, it's quite a workout so the German raw version is easier.

There's a reason in that joke it's hell when the English are the cooks....mince pies, Christmas cake and pudding are all equally horrid and I'll eat most things.

I hate dried fruit but it's hardly a British phenomenon. Many countries use dried fruit, particularly at Christmas.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListoffChristmasdishes

I'm British (Scottish) and I don't eat turkey, brussel sprouts, bread sauce, pigs in blankets, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, trifle, the list goes on!

I don't eat stuffing either, I make a Scottish side dish called Skirlie, which is onion, oatmeal and a touch of salt, cooked in a pan first, then finished off in the oven.

But the french ones are nice 😬

But it was a joke which I guess got lost too. Eye rolls generally mean annoyance rather than just irony.

Am ancient British (Scottish) and many of the things now touted as 'traditional' really are not so. As others have said, pigs in blankets are a modern marketing ploy. Traditionally no-one traditionally EVER ate cauliflower cheese with a roast, or mashed potatoes, either. Sugar-glazed carrots and ditto parsnips as an accompaniment are also not trad, and, IMHO, an abomination. Cranberry sauce is American - as others have also said 'why put jam on your meat?'- and Yorkshire puddings were traditionally only an accompaniment to roast beef, not to chicken or turkey.

Bread sauce was a trad luxury accompaniment to dry game birds, and, if properly made, can be good (breadcrumbs, single cream, butter, an onion stuck with cloves, a bay leaf, plenty of salt and pepper and an optional sprinkling of nutmeg). But it's wrong with other roasts except perhaps LEAN poultry. I agree also with previous poster about stuffing; the whole point of it used to be to put it inside the bird to absorb some of the fat/juices/flavour during the cooking and thereby create something extra to eat. The simplest versions were breadcrumbs, chopped onion, parsley, salt and pepper and an egg to bind the mixture togther. Fancier versions involved sausage meat and lemon peel - small quantities - as well.

If only people could taste some of the simpler, more elegant past versions of Christmas foods, rather than today's offerings.

Brussels sprouts WERE trad - because, again as a prvious poster has said - they were one of the few green veg available at that time in winter. But has anyone here ever tried chopped brussels sprouts very, very quickly stir-fried with garlic and black pepper and - if you like them - chopped chestnuts.? A revelation.

Sausage meat stuffing was also traditionally stuffed in the turkey!

It's the salty and sweet thing. It's a very common combo of flavours.

Have you never had cheese with figs or grapes? Ham and pineapple? Duck with orange?

We always had chipolatas wrapped in bacon growing up but didn't call them pigs in blankets.

I tend to like Christmas food because it is precisely that, I don't eat it at any other time, but then I have an aversion to year round hot cross buns etc. To everything there is a season.
However, I am 66 years old and I will never let a Brussels sprout across my threshold at any time.

Born and bred here mine are most thing,

turkey
mince pies
Christmas pudding
bread sauce
stuffing
brussel sprouts, would eat at a push
cauliflower cheese - could eat the cauliflower on its own if had to
pigs in blankets
ridiculously rich chocolate deserts that over take the supermarkets
anything spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg
candy canes
braised red cabbage
cinnamon rolls - never heard of them until MN
tubs of roses and quality streets - take or leave but I rarely buy them
Gregs Christmas bake

Not British but also hate Stollen and Panatoni

I love most of it, but I don’t like trifle - too many slimy textures in one go for my taste. When I lived in Britain, I’d sometimes get “Oh, but you must try my mum’s trifle, it’s the best!” And of course I would then dutifully try this trifle, made lovingly from a generations-old recipe, and I’d smile and say how lovely it was. Internally, I’d be thinking about how much I’d prefer a slice of cheesecake.

I’m British and I don’t like Christmas cake, pudding or mince pies. I’m not keen on pigs in blankets either or turkey, or cranberry sauce/jelly, or parsnips

I love bread sauce. I never had it as a child as my parents don’t like it but it’s my favourite bit of the dinner, that and the stuffing. Just give me bread sauce and stuffing that’s all I need.

I do like cauliflower cheese but not as part of a Christmas dinner - never heard of that until I saw it on Mumsnet. Brussel sprouts can be really good if cooked well.

I’d love to know what some of the non-British people on the thread enjoy at Christmas

This thread has nothing on the way that everything American is routinely insulted on Mumsnet. Please don’t blame us for banoffee as well, we aren’t responsible for it.

Also goose is a greasy meat, harder to cook and expensive.

Mince pies would be good with about 50% less sugar imo, they're always mouth-burningly sweet and I have a sweet tooth.

I've never had Christmas cake, is the white bit meant to be eaten or just for decoration ?

Otherwise, pigs in blankets are a no !

How old are you? Were you the first generation of your family to have them?

Another forriner.

In any Christmas food thread, so many posts say pigs in blankets. And for ages I couldn't understand why people were having sausage rolls with their Christmas meal 😂 thank goodness I didn't post and just Googled instead. But to me a sausage roll makes more sense.

It's the amount of starch on one plate that seems the norm but certainly is a bit odd to me. Roast pototoes, mashed potatoes, yorkshire pudding, bread sauce, stuffing.

And then there are parsnips. And turnips. They aren't very nice are they. Like a carrot but not.

I don't mind Christmas pudding (more starch) but Christmas cake with marzipan.. No.

But food does seem to be a very big focus for Christmas day going by what I have read. We do like a nice meal (usually ours is an outdoor situation) but very much more casual.

I like most traditional British Christmas food despite not having grown up with them, but most of it really has to be home-made. I don't bother with the turkey, though.We will be having a herb-fed chicken instead.

But I love mince pies in orange scented pastry, and a rum-soaked, ginger-spiked fruitcake with a slice of Wensleydale, And I love all the side dishes - crispy roast potatoes, intensely savoury pigs in blankets, earthy parsnips, herb-scented stuffing, the sweetness of carrots offset by the faint bitterness of sprouts. Yum!

Those cheesy football snacks are disgusting, though, and I only ever see them at Christmas, so that can be the traditional food that I hate. But that can be cancelled out by the Benedick's Bittermints which are delicious and somehow make me feel like a proper English person every time I eat one, in a way that happens with only a few other foods, like toast with marmalade with a cup of tea.