On December 25, families and friends around the world will gather to dig into a delicious Christmas meal and the royal families of Europe are no exception.
Preparations for many of these elaborate feasts are well underway. One royal, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, even has a new Netflix holiday special, With Love, Meghan: Holiday Celebration, which features her decorating Christmas cookies. In recent Instagram posts, she prepares mulled cider and bastes a turkey with a sage and honey glaze (and of course Prince Harry’s favorite gravy). It’s a clever branding move: Both the mulling spices and the honey are part of As Ever, her lifestyle brand in collaboration with the streamer.
While Meghan and Harry shape their own holiday traditions in Montecito, far from King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince William and Princess Kate, the royal families of Europe will enjoy feasts filled with historic dishes, many of which spring from traditions stretching back to the Middle Ages.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, English royal holiday banquets were stacked with countless dishes, with a heavy emphasis on expensive meats. According to Louise Cooling’s A Royal Christmas, 30 oxen, 100 sheep, five boars, nine dozen fowls, salted venison, salmon, lampreys (an eel-like fish) and 19 large wine casks were procured for King Henry III of England’s Christmas at Woodstock Palace in 1264.
Mincemeat pies, crane, swan, brawn (terrine made with a pig’s head and served with mustard), goose and lamprey pie, and even porpoise (served dressed with vinegar and breadcrumbs) were all popular holiday fare. A boar’s head, presented on a platter, was often the first dish of the feast. “After a flourish of trumpets it was carried into the banqueting hall, by the server, on a gold or silver dish,” the Nottinghamshire Guardian reported in 1900. “A procession followed, consisting of nobles, knights, and ladies singing a joyous carol.”
Peacocks were also considered a delicacy in medieval feasts; their colorful feathers proudly displayed. “The bird was first skinned, and the feathered tail, head and neck were laid on a table, and sprinkled with cumin,” Sheila Hutchins writes in Royal Cookbook: Favorite Court Recipes from the World’s Royal Families. “The body was then roasted, glazed with raw egg yolks, cooled, sewn back into the skin, and served as the last course.”
Frumenty—a wholegrain porridge made with cream, honey, expensive spices like nutmeg and cinnamon, and dried fruit and nuts—was a popular dish (which later evolved into a Christmas pudding). There was also “Christmas Pottage,” a plum broth of beef or mutton, breadcrumbs, raisins, currants and spices. This recipe would evolve over the centuries, becoming even more decadent. The recipe preferred by 19th-century English monarch George IV included beef, veal, dried fruits, spices, ground cochineal (for a festive red pigment) and tons of booze including port, brandy, sherry, Madeira and claret.
It was during Queen Victoria’s long reign that many of the British royal family’s Christmas traditions were set. “At dinner there were all the Christmas dishes, of which we generally had to eat a little,” Queen Victoria recalled, per Cooling. “First the cold baron of beef which stood on the large sideboard all decked out – brawn – game pies from Ireland…stuffed turkey – wild boar’s head…mince pies etc. etc. – and all sorts of Bonbons and figures and toys were brought at dessert, many of which were given to the children; and there used to be such great excitement and delight.”
Preparing an enormous baron of beef was a huge undertaking. Weighing more than 286 pounds, it consisted of two hind legs of a Shorthorn Ox from the royal estate of Frogmore. “Down one length of the kitchen was a roaring open fire where two royal roasters dripped with sweat as they slowly turned and basted a baron of beef,” Jake Smith writes in “A Right Royal Stuffing.” “It took exactly 12 hours to roast, from 8 a.m. till 8 p.m.…. The towering baron would sit center stage on Queen Victoria’s Christmas sideboard, served cold and decorated with the royal arms and the date made from shredded horseradish.”
A boar’s head (often sent by Victoria’s royal grandson Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany) was proudly displayed on the side table. “At Christmas, there was always a boar’s head in jelly, stuffed with forcemeat, thin strips of tongue and cheek, bacon, truffles, and pistachios. Then carefully sewn up and braised,” Tom Parker-Bowles, Queen Camilla’s son, writes in Cooking For the Crown: Royal Recipes from Queen Victoria to King Charles III. “Alongside, a huge raised pie in which woodcock went into pheasant, pheasant into chicken, and chicken into turkey. All the birds were boned and surrounded with stuffing, before being entombed in a rich pastry and baked.”
Plum puddings were sent as gifts to Victoria’s scattered relatives in the reigning houses of Europe, with Tsar Nicholas II of Russia always being sent the first slice.
According to Smith, Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra, Victoria’s granddaughter, preferred an English-inspired Christmas meal, eating a dinner of roast beef and plum pudding to mark the holiday. To make sure it was correct, the children’s English governess “made the puddings and forbade the French chefs anywhere near her creations-in-the-making”, according to Nicholas’s sister, Grand Duchess Olga.
For Christmas Eve, there was a wide variety of fish, kept in a marble aquarium in the Tsar’s kitchens to ensure they were fresh. “Whole stuffed sterlets—a species of small sturgeon—were served, upon which, like miniature glowing Christmas baubles, the prized golden caviar from the sterlet was arranged to make the most magnificent garnish,” Smith writes.
Not to be undone, Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Christmas feast included magnificent blue carp. “To prepare the dish, the scales on the fish were left intact so a chemical reaction with beer and vinegar during cooking caused the 1.2-meter long fish to take on a blue glow,” Smith writes. He also had his chefs prepare thousands of gingerbread cookies as presents.
It was Victoria’s gluttonous son, King Edward VII, who popularized the turkey as the centerpiece of Christmas lunch, a tradition that continues in the British royal family. Subsequent royals also have continued the tradition of giving plum puddings as gifts. According to Parker-Bowles, Queen Mary of Teck’s plum pudding recipe was particularly decadent. “300 pounds of pudding mixture was made containing four gallons of strong ale, a bottle of rum, and a bottle of brandy. All stirred by hand, it was divided into 150 two-pound desserts and given out to all of the staff,” he writes.
Queen Elizabeth II continued this tradition, gifting Christmas puddings from department store Fortnum & Mason to her staff. In the late 1990s, she switched to a more affordable version from Tesco. Today, Fortnum & Mason sells King Charles III’s Highgrove Organic Christmas Pudding each holiday season.
The turkey and plum puddings remain at the British royal family’s annual Christmas luncheon at Sandringham, as does (at least during Queen Elizabeth II’s reign) the boar’s head. “They’re actually boring when it comes to festivities! They didn’t do hams or anything, just traditional turkeys,” former royal chef Darren McGrady told Hello!. “Usually it was homemade sage and onion stuffing, brussels sprouts with bacon and chestnuts, sometimes parsnips and carrots—it varied year to year—mashed potatoes and roast potatoes, homemade gravy, then Christmas pudding with brandy sauce,” McGrady told the BBC.
However, the presentation of the pudding was anything but boring. “The pudding was made in pudding basins, turned out, decorated in holly, doused in brandy and then the palace steward would carry it, flaming, into the royal dining room,” he recalled. “It was so traditional.”
According to McGrady, teatime included mince pies, scones, and a chocolate yule log and Christmas cake, with another Christmas cake made especially for the royal grandchildren. Later, there was a decadent evening buffet. “Harrods would always give them a whole foie gras en croûte,” he remembered. “They’d have a whole Stilton cheese. We’d take the top off, pitchfork the top and pour Port into it. It made this gorgeous spread for the crackers. It was really opulent.”
Even the Queen’s beloved corgis indulged in a Christmas meal of rabbit or beef mixed with rice and cabbage. While much of the menu has stayed the same during King Charles’s reign, he insists on organic, fresh produce, and has banned foie gras, so some menu items have been altered.
Across the pond, King Charles’s European counterparts continue to enjoy holiday culinary traditions with a long history. The Swedish royal family’s Christmas meal includes lutefisk, commonly a cod fish prepared by soaking it in water and lye, which is said to taste like “fish-flavored Jell-O.” The dish’s origins stretch back to the 1500s and is usually served with salted butter. To celebrate German-born Queen Silvia’s December 23 birthday, there is also a stollen, the colorful sweet bread, featuring nuts and fruits which have been soaked in brandy. Once baked, it is sprinkled with powdered sugar.
According to the Daily Express, the Norwegian royal family eat a main course of grilled-baby pork on Christmas Eve, a tradition that started in 1905. In Spain, the family of King Felipe and Queen Letizia are thought to indulge in a spread including cochinillo (roasted suckling pig), roast lamb, seafood and turrón, a traditional Spanish nougat confection which includes almonds, egg whites, honey and sugar.
On January 5, the eve of the Epiphany, children throughout Spain eat Roscón de Reyes, a ring of brioche, often flavored with orange and sugar, with candied fruit topping and sometimes filled with whipped cream. Inside are small toys for children, and occasionally a bean which means the person who found it must pay for the Roscón.
A similar Christmas tradition is enjoyed by the Danish royal family. The family feast on roast goose, cabbage and potatoes and desserts like æblekage (an apple cake) and rombudding (rum pudding) topped with raspberry sauce, per Hello!. But most exciting is the Risalamande, a tradition stretching back over a century. This rice pudding, flavored with heavy cream, sugar and vanilla contains one whole almond. Whoever finds the almond wins the “almond present,” be they Queen or commoner.
More solemn is the tradition of the Pan de Natale. Each year, Prince Albert II of Monaco and a priest bless a round sweet bread, decorated with a cross formed by nuts. A historic tradition celebrated throughout the principality, the Pan de Natale is surrounded by thirteen dishes, one for each day before the Epiphany. The palace is also famous for its hot chocolate recipe. According to Princess Charlene, Santa’s reindeer are also well fed, as her children Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella leave out water and grass for the reindeer.
At the end of the holiday season, it is unsurprising royals are stuffed and sated just like commoners the world over. And they aren’t averse to eating leftovers. According to Parker-Bowles, King Charles’s favorite Boxing Day (December 26) meal is a pulled and grilled curry made with leftover turkey.
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