Festive food through the ages

Growing up in India, we never let religion get in the way of a good party with outstanding food. My Hindu parents happily embraced Eid with family friends and partied until dawn on Christmas Eve. That

Jolly frock-coated robins, majestic geese and arboreal partridges make for both literal and symbolic centrepieces at Christmas, says Matthew Dennison, as he revels in the cultural history of the season’s feathered fowl and game

→ When the Tudor poet Thomas Tusser wrote of “Turkey wel drest” as part of a Christmas feast in 1573, he was in fact taking part in a trend new to these shores. Turkeys, those red-necked birds who gob

D inah was not a Christmas cook. Her ...

There is something pleasant in the thought that joviality will reign to-morrow in such grim homes as London workhouses,” a reporter for the West Londoner wrote on Christmas Eve 1870. “There will be an

We eat around 2pm, starting with foie gras and sweet Monbazillac wine – a throwback to when we lived in Paris. Then, we move to the Sri Lankan part: biryani, chocolate biscuit pudding, before Sri Lank