I will not be cooking Christmas dinner this year. This is fairly typical, because no-one in their right mind would let me near such a thing. I do love to experiment in the kitchen. Sometimes the results are spectacular; sometimes more akin to the development of a novel bio-weapon. I can’t be trusted to get it right.
So I’ll be sitting down with family and friends and, doubtless there will be the single most important piece of evidence for the non-existence of God on the menu; the Brussels sprout.
Why God? Just why?
What are these rancid balls of evil actually for?
Anyway, I have been tasked with making the mash. I’m usually pretty good at that. The mistake a lot of people make with mash is they follow all the food propaganda that’s built up over the years. Butter - OMG you’ll die of a heart attack. Cream - now you’re just asking for a funeral. Salt? Just being in the same room as salt will kill you.
The result, for mash, is this tasteless white shite that gets slopped onto your plate and you meekly turn to your host and ask for the salt, pepper, and maybe the ketchup in the hope and prayer that it will give the insipid gloop something resembling a taste.
This year I’ll do two kinds. A plain variety (with butter, cream, and salt) with a few fresh chopped chives, and my bacon mash. Smoked streaky bacon fried to near crisp in a good quality extra virgin oil. Add the bacon to the boiled spuds. Use the oil, which now has all the bacon flavour, instead of butter in the mash. A decent dash of heavy cream and set to work with the hand masher. With smoked bacon you probably won’t need to add any salt.
This year I’m wondering whether a dash of maple syrup towards the end of the bacon frying will work or not. I just can’t stop myself from experimenting.
Let the results sit in the fridge for a day or two (you’ll thank me for this) and then you can pop them in the oven to heat up on the day.
I’m not a fan of using an electric whisk to do the mashing. It’s too easy to end up with something that is like the baby-food version of mash that way. I like some texture and so it’s hand mashing all the way for me.
It’s a time of some indulgence and gratification - but it’s an indulgence and gratification that really only properly works because you’re sharing it with others. There’s no good Pornhub version of Christmas.
To offset this shameful display of colonial indulgence we’re going to assess how much whiteness we’ve consumed and try to figure out where the racism is in our Christmas meal. Robin Dangle-Low assures me that there must be some - we just have to find it. After the meal we’ll do the work and read select passages from Dangle-Low’s classic text White Fragility. It will be such fun.
I’m not sure how we’re going to spot the evil of racism when there’s the Brussels sprouts casting their demonic pall over everything - but we’ll try our best.
I will take a break from here for a while. It’s time to focus more on the immediate and real - and that means connecting again with actual people and maybe spending some time with them - even if that does mean I have to eat a Brussels sprout1.
Meanwhile - have a Blessed Christmas - even if you do have to consume the devil’s own gonads in vegetable form.
*A Christmas decoration my daughters made for me
I have booked some intensive therapy sessions for the New Year to see if I can overcome my rampant sproutaphobia. I promise not to make any calls for sprout genocide in 2024. After all, sprout rights are vegetable rights.
What a treat.
I've been out plowing the yard - manually, of course - trying to shovel away the 15cm of snow that came overnight and coming in, getting into dry clothes and pouring a tall glass of juniper flavoured soda, what do I find? The above post in my inbox. Spirits: picked up.
Brussels sprouts are much maligned and I've never understood why. You can even pickle them.
Since you like to experiment, check out this page for ideas:
https://www.swedishfood.com/swedish-food-recipes-side-dishes/192-root-mash
Only people need worry about fat or cream or salt are people with some ailment or other.
Merry Christmas to everyone in this Substack.