Christmas Quotes
“Now Christmas comes, 'tis fit that we
should feast and sing, and merry be:
Keep open house, let fidlers play.
A fig for cold, sing care away;
And may they who thereat repine,
On brown bread and on small beer dine.”
from the 1766 Virginia Almanack
“When other Sin's grow old by Time,
Then Avarice is in its prime,
Yet feed the Poor at Christmas time.”
Poor Richard's Almanack, December 1757
“Little Jack Horner sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie.
He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum,
And said, 'What a good boy am I?'”
Little Jack Horner, A nursery rhyme.
“Truffles are only really good after Christmas.....So let us allow ignorant fops, beardless gourmands, and inexperienced palates the perry triumph of eating the first truffles.”
Grimod de la Reynière (1758-1838)
“A three-year-old gave this reaction to her Christmas dinner: ‘I don't like the turkey, but I like the bread he ate.’"
unknown
“In my experience, clever food is not appreciated at Christmas. It makes the little ones cry and the old ones nervous.”
Jane Grigson
“It is a great Nostrum the composition of this Pasty ["Christmas Pye"]; it is a most learned Mixture of Neats-tongues, Chickens, Eggs, Sugar, Raisins, Lemon and Orange Peel, various kinds of Spicery, etc.”
M. Missions Memoirs (1719)
“Hallo! A great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding.”
Charles Dickens (1812-1870). 'A Christmas Carol'
“At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the [goose] breast; but when she did, and when the long- expected gush of stuffing issued forth...."
Charles Dickens (1812-1870). 'A Christmas Carol'
Christmas in England: “For many of the islanders, this anniversary is memorable (apart from all religious significance) because it evokes a great slaughter of turkeys, geese and all kinds of game, a wholesale massacre of fat oxen, pigs and sheep; they envisage garlands of black puddings, sausages and saveloys . . . mountains of plum-puddings and oven-fulls of mince-pies.... On that day no one in England may go hungry .... This is a family gathering, and on every table the same menu is prepared. A joint of beef, a turkey or goose, which is usually the pièce de résistance, accompanied by a ham, sausages and game; then follow the inevitable plum-pudding and the famous mince pies.”
Alfred Suzanne, La Cuisine anglaise et americaine (English and American Cookery)
“There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration. Eded out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish) they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows.”
Charles Dickens (1812-1870). 'A Christmas Carol'
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