Christmas is full of old traditions, like eating turkey on Christmas day, sending out Christmas cards, hanging tinsel around the house, but why do we do it and how did it originate? Here’s the facts.
Turkeys were first bought into Britain in 1526, before this time, for Christmas meals people used to eat geese, boars’ head and even peacocks.
Turkeys were eaten instead of cows and chickens because the farmers needed their cows more for their milk, and needed their chickens for the eggs, which back then were more expensive than they are today. So instead of killing off one of their livestock for Christmas, they’d have a turkey as it was something different and they could save their livestock to produce more milk and eggs..
Henry VIII was the first person to eat a turkey on Christmas Day, however it wasn’t until the 1950’s that the turkey was a more popular Christmas meal choice than the goose.
The good thing about Christmas Day and turkeys is that Christmas is a family time, and turkeys are family size!
87% of British people believe that Christmas would not be the same without a traditional roast turkey.
Today in the UK, we eat around 10 million turkeys every year for Christmas time.
25% of British people buy their turkeys months in advance.
A survey shows that the top three most popular ways to serve leftover Christmas turkey are: sandwiches, soups/stews or salads.
Personally, I detest roast turkey. Invariably the breast meat is dry unless you are really lucky, so I would always target the dark meat. My experiences include my own cooking, that of family and so called professional chefs. My preference is to have a ham (gammon) joint and perhaps a lamb joint as an alternative. Having said that, we had a pre-prepared turkey breast joint and pork with our rellies this year. The turkey was really moist, and so was the pork. Just yummy. So perhaps that’s the exception that proves the rule. Anyway, leftover from turkeys cooked at home tended to go down the “soup made from the whole carcass with added veggies” route and curry made from the left over meat. By the way, the soup, when cooled, would set solid in the pan just like a jelly. We knew we had a good one if it did that.
I am not a fan of turkey, I will eat a small amount of it but I prefer chicken and ham, I am not a big fan of pork either like turkey I will eat a small amount but that is about it