Sugar and spice
Future imperfect
I’m part of the British generation that spent its childhood in a haze of complacency.…
“Sugar and spice and all things nice” is a refrain from Robert Southey’s nursery rhyme What are little girls made of? that for me sums up the countdown to Christmas, starting with advance preparations in November.
Spices are as warm and aromatic as the islands they come from. They give a gentle interest and heat to the many seasonal recipes they are used in, handed down from generation to generation, wrapped up tradition, love and plenty of nostalgia. Yet although everyone has spice jars in their kitchen, they often loiter at the back of the cupboard until autumn comes and it’s time to start ticking off the jobs that can be done in advance.
First, we reach for the cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg needed for baking fruit-rich Christmas cakes and puddings. Then there are the pomanders, made by piercing oranges with cloves, which are circled and looped with red ribbon and left to dry until it’s time to let them scent our rooms with their citrusy, peppery aroma. Cardamom, cinnamon, allspice and dried fruits can be folded into small muslin bags ready for making mulled wine (they’re also perfect as homemade gifts) – and make you crave the whiff of the first steaming glass that announces the start of festivities.
For those who celebrate Thanksgiving, traditional dishes like pumpkin pie involve cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. The end of November also means the start of Christmas fairs around Europe, in town squares from Basel to Budapest. The mere sight of a highly-decorated gingerbread house is enough to stop me in my tracks and transport me back to memories
of childhood.
And December is when the kitchen hums with the scent of spices, as trays of biscuits and other goodies emerge from the oven. As Annie Gray says in her fabulous book At Christmas We Eat, “There is one day of the year where English cuisine unfurls its banners and shows itself in its national colours.”
Spices first came into popularity in Britain during late medieval times, when they were brought in by land or sea from the Middle East. At that time, “spice” was a term liberally applied to all kinds of exotic natural products, from pepper to sugar and herbs to animal secretions such as civet from wildcats. Rarity made them a fashionable addition to any dish, found only at a rich person’s table. They were also used to ward off illnesses, including everything from stomach problems to chills or trapped wind (which is always good news for midwinter feasting).
Becoming more accessible and cheaper down the centuries (often as a result of brutal colonialism) spices never lost that quality of being used for special occasions and they’re still a vital part of our traditional celebrations for eating and drinking. Interestingly, however, it isn’t the pungent, heating flavours of chilli, cumin and turmeric that are used time and again in various festive dishes, but the calmer, scented flavours of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.
They are used for traditional festivities throughout Europe, whether it’s Germany’s lebkuchen made with nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice, Portugal’s Sonhos doughnuts rolled in cinnamon sugar, France’s Pain d’épices made with ginger, coriander and anis, or Italy’s vanilla-flavoured panettone.
We’re as nostalgic about the rituals of the big day as we are for the flavours. Growing up I remember Uncle George peeling fruit or cracking nuts for my siblings and cousins, and sadly he has just died at the ripe old age of 96. Now it’s celebrated with my own family, crammed around the table, elbows jammed together, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. And almost all our favourite dishes contain spices, from the turkey braised in mace butter to the bread sauce redolent with cloves and bay leaf, or the mince pies we indulge whenever possible.
I recently read it was good luck to eat a mince pie a day in the run-up to Christmas and I’m hoping it’s not too early to start. But could it be that festive over-indulgence is the real reason my spice jars go back in the cupboard until the following winter?
