Christmas, more than ever, has become an unholy celebration of consumption and greed. In the lead up to Christmas (which starts earlier and earlier each year) we buy too much food, of which we waste a significant amount (averagely 50 million bin bags of unwanted Christmas food reaches landfills.)
We don't spare a thought for the poorly paid workers who toil away making stuff we don't need but must have, or face the lamentable truth, as we engorge ourselves with turkey and mince pies, that all around the world, every 5 seconds a child living in poverty dies.
Apparently, 13 million Britons can't make ends meet, yet by mid December all trace of birds stuffed with birds, ready-made stuffing and bread sauce, luxury mince pies and Christmas puddings, prepared sprouts, red cabbage, pigs in blankets etc, are gone from the shelves. This is modern Christmas and it comes ready-made!
The rituals of making bread sauce (for example) from stale bread to bulk out a Christmas dinner, as many poorer classes did, are long gone, as has making pastry for a few mince pies or homemade sausage rolls. These days, mum's gone to Iceland where foodstuffs are cheap and plentiful and by consequence, disposable.
An elderly friend of mine told me that she recently asked in her local supermarket where she could find suet? She was met with a blank stare. The manager was summoned and said to my friend he didn't know what suet was, my friend explained she wanted to make dumplings to which he replied: 'What are dumplings?'
Foodstuffs like dumplings were staples in working class households a couple of generations ago when people really couldn't 'make ends meet.' As a child I remember my mother making stews with cheap cuts of meat, neck of lamb or ox tail and bulking it out with vegetables and dumplings.
Even on 'professional' Masterchef the chefs are failing simple skills tests such as making a basic pancake, it seems they're only capable of dealing with exotic and expensive ingredients.
So, after our modern Christmas of overindulgence, rather than consigning your leftover turkey or ham to the bin, why not make a tasty stew and top it with delicious dumplings.
Dumplings
Recipe
125g self raising flour
60g suet
Sift the flour and a pinch of salt into a bowl
Add the suet and enough water to form a thick dough
With floured hands, roll spoonfuls of the dough into small balls
Add to your stew and cook for 20 minutes or until dumplings have swollen and are tender
'Everything in excess is opposed to nature.'
- Hippocrates.
Love Donna xxxxxxxx
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