Not Delia

Not Delia’s Poll 5 – Turkey for Christmas?

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Results of Not Delia's Poll No.5 - turkey for Christmas?With the annual bombardment of turkey recipes in the run-up to Christmas, we thought it’d be interesting to find out how many of you follow tradition and have a turkey dinner with family or friends at home, and how many do things differently.

It wasn’t altogether a surprise to see that the turkey dinner at home came top. I suppose a lot of people do it for nostalgic reasons – it’s what they had as children. And, of course, it’s cheap, thanks in part to the efforts of Bernard “Bootiful” Matthews (who by coincidence died a month before Christmas Day, aged 80).

But it was a bit of a surprise to see that, like us, so many of you opt to make the centrepiece of your special Christmas meal something other than turkey. Maybe it’s the prospect of spending the next few weeks wading through platefuls of turkey sandwiches, bowls of turkey stew, turkey and mushroom vol-au-vents. Of course, those of us who don’t buy one of these massive birds, don’t have to go through cold turkey. 😈

And given that Christmas Day is one of the big three occasions in the year for so many restaurants, we might have expected to see more votes going for meals out. Not so, it seems. A reflection of the economic climate, perhaps?

Comments are still open, so please feel free to comment and tell us more about your Christmas dinner if you had one.

Comments

9 responses to “Not Delia’s Poll 5 – Turkey for Christmas?”

  1. Mr Not Delia

    I don’t mind turkey – and, like most people in the UK, it was what I grew up having for Christmas dinners when I was a kid. But it’s not a particular favourite of mine.

    And after years of living overseas, where turkey wasn’t cheap, it seemed a bit silly to keep buying this oversized, hard-to-come-by bird when we’d far rather sit down to a nice piece of pork – so we kicked the habit. A case of cold not-turkey, perhaps. (Sorry.)

  2. Mike K-H

    I don’t like breast meat from any fowl – might as welleat pulped cardboard – and that seems to be what most people think of when they say Christmas turkey. When we were in southern Engalnd, we used to have roadkill pheasant for Chrtistmas. Later, in the Scottish Highlands, we had a wider choice of game.

  3. Mike K-H

    Oh yes, Mr ND. Pork is an excellent choice. And more than once we have cooked a smoked ham – which is also much tastier eaten cold for the next few weeks than turkey…

  4. Mike K-H

    … oh, dear. Wish you allowed edits for a short time after posting. Sorry about the typos, folks. But I’m still glad to hear that English examiners will soon be deducting marks for errors in spelling and grammar…

  5. Mr Not Delia

    I’m with you on the breast meat, Mike – generally it’s too dry for my taste. I’ve always preferred the thighs myself.

    I’m a bit shocked by your comment about English examiners – I was under the impression when taking my O and A-levels (about 30 years ago – erk) that they already did! Maybe they stopped in the interim?

  6. Matt Chatterley

    We did have roast turkey this year – a crown, which was set up and cooked in the remoska – but it’s an exception rather than the rule. Normally we pick a theme from around the world; Mexico and China have both featured in the recent past!

    Turkey is quite often involved, but seldom as a roast – it goes well with a good “mole” sauce!

  7. Jill Colonna

    Fascinating poll and that more people are moving away from Turkey. I’ve been living in France now for nearly 20 yrs and my husband (French) always complains that turkey is so bland, boring and (sorry, no offense, this is him that says this no me) he refuses to eat “that jam” that’s served with it.
    Previously I served Ostrich with a mulled wine jus and this past Christmas we celebrated with his family in Corsica with traditional cabri (young goat) served with no sauce. Personally would have preferred some kind of “jam” with it, though 😉

  8. Dave

    We will never do without our turkey roast with all the trimmings on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and as long as it takes to eat the rest so the bird didn’t die in vain, since moving from the U/K we have settled for frozen but this year managed to acquire a freshly slaughtered free range bird from a local family farm, turkey never tasted better, what a difference it made, Happy New Year everyone.

  9. Not Delia

    Happy New Year, everyone from me too. Thanks for all your comments.

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