1940s Archive

Food Flashes

Originally Published December 1947

The evolution of our Christmas dinner is a story of robust, merry feasting, of wholesale hospitality reaching down the centuries. Just where and when the first Christmas feast occurred, records fail to tell. But by the eleventh century strange and marvelous dishes began to load the long tables in the holly-decked halls where with “mirth and princely cheare” our husky ancestral cousins dined during the twelve days of bountiful Yuletide feasting.

Bringing in the boar's head had become a tradition as early as 1170 when old manuscripts tell of the ceremony being performed “according to the manner” or as decreed by the Emily Post of those days. The suckling pig in high favor for Christmas and New Year's tables is the modern version of this medieval dish. At E. Joseph's in Washington Market, in leading markets everywhere, the pigs are on hand this year, around 75 cents a pound. Pigs come wreathed in holly, a red apple in the mouth, not too different from the bedecked “processional head” of Old Christmas in England.

Let's step aside. See how they served his honor in the old years. Music outside, profuse rather than refined; so is the menu. In bursts the jester, more gaily goofy than ever. Now the boar's head! Instantly the entire company rises to its feet. Two handsomely costumed heralds raise silver trumpets. Before the notes have died away the chief cook carries in the massive platter holding the boar's head, garnished not with wispy parsley but with a substantial wreath of bay with sprigs of rosemary in its ears and a roasted red apple in its mouth.

Minstrels follow the lordly dish, then come the upper servants, each carrying aloft some lesser dish to grace the Christmas board. The menu arrives in regal state to the high table while the minstrels sing carols.

The autocratic peacock graced the tables of England's feudal lords as the democratic turkey graces ours today. Skinned before roasting, stuffed with spices and sweet herbs and then reclothed with its own feathers, it was brought to the banqueting hall in stately pageant by the “first lady” of that distinguished company. To the strains of music the honored guest attended by her retinue of young maidens carried in Juno's bird. Around flocked young knights errant to make solemn vows over the feathers.

Grace A. Rush of Cincinnati, maker of the Martha Ann products—the fruit-cake, hard sauce, spiced nuts, and conserves—has a trio of gift boxes that are as fine as you will meet anywhere for the money. The box itself is red-and-gold striped with gold lid, tied with blue ribbon. The best buy to our thinking is the No. 2 box, priced at $3.95, which carries a 14-ounce fruitcake, 4-ounce jar of brandied hard sauce, 10-ounce jar of walnut and ginger conserve, another of grapes and walnuts. The No. 1 box, $3.59, carries a 4 ½-ounce jar of spiced almonds, the same of mint almonds, and the two jars of conserves. A third box, selling at $4.49, has the conserves and the almonds, plus a 5-ounce box of glacéed fruits.

Here are a few of the hundreds of fine shops across the country handling Rush gift boxes: Korrick's Dry Goods Company, Phoenix; Bullock's, Los Angeles; Hamilton's, San Diego; Quality Grocer, New Haven; Davison-Paxon, Atlanta; Marshall Field, Chicago; L. S. Ayres, Indianapolis; D. H. Holmes, New Orleans; Hopper, McGaw, Baltimore; Albert Steiger, Springfield, Massachusetts; Dayton Company, Minneapolis; Kaune Grocery, Santa Fe; Rike-Kumler, Dayton; Crescent Grocery, Oklahoma City; Simon Davis, Dallas. In New York City: Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue; Maison Glass, 15 East 47th Street; H. Hicks & Son, 660 Fifth Avenue or 30 West 57th Street; George Shaffer, 673 Madison Avenue; Joseph Victori, 164 Pearl Street; in Brooklyn, Abraham & Straus. If it's more convenient for your Christmas shopping, send your order direct to Grace A. Rush, 3715 Madison Road, Cincinnati 9, Ohio.

In the shop of Gina and Selma at 1048 Lexington Avenue, the very heart of Christmas beats. Christmas wasn't meant to be neckties and socks, silk scarves and ash trays, store-wrapped and mailed. Real Christmas is made of finer stuff, one part whimsy and one part love and add what you will. Gina and Selma have made Christmas what it should be. Go there for things to make your tree shine like the stars, to make children solemn with “ohs” or explode with quick laughter. Fat Santa is on hand molded of chocolate, so are his reindeer. Santa's red boot is formed of spun sugar, there's a spun-sugar sleigh, a spun-sugar chimney decorated with spun-candy bows and holly, bright with red berries.

Subscribe to Gourmet