Take five: Festive food swaps to cater for all tastes
Has Flavours Sligo Launched Two Pickled Of Experience Sligo Oyster Oysters
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843, set down a seasonal food template for the ages, gathering the Cratchit family around the hearth for their sage and onion-stuffed goose, a pudding “like a speckled cannon-ball”, apples, oranges, and “a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire”.
Although it was a very Victorian, very English Christmas, its influence has endured across countries, greetings cards, and seasonal films.
In Ireland, a goose was a traditional centrepiece until the turkey took over.
The alternative is still available and free-range geese can be sourced nationwide. Some of the best come from East Ferry Farm, Midleton, at eastferryfarm.com, (4-5kg/€100).
An Irish Christmas also includes many variations on dried fruit, sugar, and spice: fragrant mince pies; a Christmas pudding to steam up the wintertime kitchen; and, frequently entombed under a carapace of iron-hard royal icing, the obligatory — often unloved — Christmas cake.
Traditional family recipes are treasured, many steeped in childhood memories of baking.
Two generations of our family have used recipes from a much-annotated small red booklet written by Irish food writer Paula Daly during the 1980s for Stork margarine, choosing butter over marge for a better flavour.
This time of the year can also see intense dietary negotiation as you try to cater for a newly proclaimed vegan sibling, coeliac parents, or an occasional vegetarian.
Don’t stress and don’t let yourself get trapped by unwritten rules — Christmas is also an opportunity to start new food traditions.
Ditch the orange squash and fizzy drinks for a home-grown alternative in the form of elderflower cordial (500ml/from €8.25) from Longford-based Richmount Cordial Company.
Over the past 11 years, Martina and David Burns have established Ireland’s largest elder orchard on their family farm, planting more than 2,000 trees and using the blossom to make their fragrant award-winning cordial.
There are no artificial sweeteners or flavourings. The Burns use the same five ingredients as the homemade version — elderflowers, lemon, sugar, citric acid, and water.
It’s a refreshingly short list, especially compared to the 18 ingredients in a bottle of Miwadi orange squash.
- Find it at independent food shops nationwide, including Urru in Bandon, Ardkeen Supermarket in Waterford, Avoca outlets, and at richmountcordials.ie.
If you’re looking for a Christmas meal that will work for vegans, coeliacs, or anyone who appreciates new flavours, My Goodness in Cork’s English Market will sort you out.
Its legendary Vegan Christmas Survival Kit came about in 2016 when founders Virginia and Donal O’Gara joined the English Market.
“We had lots of worried mammies telling us their son’s girlfriend is a ‘vaygan’ and they didn’t know what to make for them,” says Virginia.
“We made an all-inclusive vegan/gluten-free Christmas meal, with starters, mains, desserts, and drinks.”
Describing it as “everything you need for that awkward vegan in one package”, Virginia says that customers greet it with a mixture of excitement and relief: “Excited because there are so many interesting and tasty items in the kit, and relieved because the entire Christmas meal is taken care of.”
My Goodness has just launched its Christmas menu, with lots of extra treats. The pre-ordered kits (€85) will be available to collect from the English Market or their farmers’ markets from December 14.
Watch out for its Kimchi Bloody Mary Mix and the Holy Baby Cheezus Board.
- Visit mygoodnessfood.com
Something about Christmas time makes us want to wrap our hands around a steaming mug of hot chocolate — but without the high sugar levels and long list of ingredients in commercial varieties.
Wicklow-based Nibbed, founded by aunt-and-niece team Lisa Kleiner and Anna O’Sullivan, produce their bean-to-bar single-origin cacao from organic beans sustainably grown in Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Honduras.
Melted with water and milk (plant-based if you want to keep it vegan), whisked to a froth, and sweetened to taste, this is a sophisticated drink worth savouring.
“When we do tastings,” Anna says. “We always tell people not to expect sweet hot chocolate. Even though it smells and looks like it, it’s not the same thing — it’s hot cacao. When people taste it, they love it.”
It’s also a handy substitute for coffee if you’ve overdone the caffeine — containing the natural stimulant theobromine, cacao gives a much gentler, longer-lasting energy boost.
- The 200g bags (€14.35) are available in health shops, including Nourish stores, and online at nibbed.ie.
Oysters are naturally high in protein and rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals.
The delicious seafood is now available in jars. Founder of the Sligo Oyster Experience, Aisling Kelly Hunter has taken hand-shucked oysters from her husband’s oyster farm in Sligo Bay and put them in vinegars from Mayo Wildwood Balsamics.
Two flavours of these pickled oysters are available — blackberry balsamic or water mint and lemon balm balsamic.
They are available in 100g jars (€18) from WB’s Coffee House and Oyster Bar in Sligo and online at sligooysterexperience.ie.
A traditional Christmas pudding may not work for everyone but there’s another option — the Alternative Christmas Pudding Company has just added a gluten-free, vegan alternative to their luxuriously wrapped chocolate biscuit puddings.
Taking a beloved family recipe and putting their own twist on it, mother-and-daughter duo Niamh and Sadhbh Cosgrove started producing their original, award-winning puddings in Ballyvolane, Co Cork, in 2013.
Due to customer demand, they have just released a free-from version using their core ingredients of dark Belgian chocolate, brandy-soaked fruits and warming seasonal spices.
“It’s fair to say finding the perfect recipe was a longer and harder road than we expected,” says Sadhbh.
“But we are so delighted with how wonderful the final pudding is — fudgy and soft with a lovely crunch.”
- Find the puddings at selected outlets, including On The Pig’s Back, and online at alternativechristmaspudding.ie, 500g, €30.