The Christmas Chronicles: Notes, stories & 100 essential recipes for midwinter. Nigel Slater
choir from St-Martin-in-the-Fields, barely a cassock’s throw away. The Norwegian Ambassador is there, as are the mayors of Oslo and Westminster. The tree is lit in traditional Norwegian style, with five hundred simple white lights, its base now garlanded, delightfully, with poems specially commissioned by the Poetry Society.
A few weeks later, just before Twelfth Night, my beloved tree is removed, chipped and composted.
And two sauces for the gnudi
I rescue yesterday’s gnudi from the fridge. I pat them, tenderly, to check their firmness.
Watercress and avocado pesto
avocados, ripe – 2
a lemon
pine kernels – 50g
basil leaves – a handful (about 10g)
olive oil – about 8–10 tablespoons
watercress – 50g
Parmesan (if you wish. I don’t.)
gnudi – 20, small
Halve, stone and peel the avocados. Halve and juice the lemon. Put the pine nuts into a food processor and blend briefly, until they are coarsely crushed, then add the avocados and basil leaves and process, adding as much olive oil and lemon as you need to produce a loose, bright green paste.
Wash the watercress and remove any tough stalks. Grate the Parmesan finely if you are using it.
Bring a pan of water to the boil, deep and generously salted, as you would to cook pasta. Carefully lower the gnudi, a few at a time, into the boiling water. When the balls float to the surface they are ready. This is generally between three and five minutes.
Add the watercress to the sauce, folding it gently through the green paste, then spoon into a serving dish. Lift the gnudi from the water with a draining spoon, place them on the avocado sauce and serve, should you wish, with grated Parmesan on the side.
Spinach and pecorino
spinach – 150g
double cream – 350ml
pecorino romano – 100g, grated
pea shoots – a handful
Wash the spinach and soften it briefly in a large pan with a lid, letting the leaves cook for a minute or two in their own steam, turning them once or twice. When the spinach is bright green and wilted, remove from the pan, squeeze almost dry, then chop it quite finely.
Warm the cream in a saucepan, add the finely chopped spinach and the grated pecorino, then spoon over the gnudi and serve with a scattering of pea shoots.
8 NOVEMBER
A seat at the pantomime
There are lads in tights, girls in breeches, elderly men with pancake make-up, and bare-chested boys in baggy pants. There are dwarfs and giants, fairies and wizards, a puss in boots and babes in a wood. There are death threats and dreams, genies in lamps, a witch, a princess, and pumpkins that turn into stagecoaches. Pantomime is a gorgeous cacophony of comedy, music, cross-gendering and high jinks.
As a child I was mesmerised by the slightly sinister, dream-like quality that runs through pantomime. I revelled in being slightly scared while all the time knowing I was in a safe place. The cross-dressing, the psychedelic costumes and the sexual innuendo appealed to a boy sitting in the company of the straightest of parents. The colours, comedy and costumes were more of a draw than the stories, which I always found slightly confusing. Take Aladdin. Is it South East Asian, Middle Eastern or East End? Answer, all three.
Most of the political and satirical references were there to amuse the accompanying adults, but not much went over my head. I often found the music terrifying. Especially in Aladdin. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade has always sent shivers up my spine. I always went accompanied by adults, Mum and Dad, an aunt or uncle. I adored the way that pantomime, like fairy tales, made me comfortably uncomfortable. It has an effect on the imagination no television or film ever could. Although I have to say the slapstick didn’t appeal then, just as it doesn’t now. I have never found people falling over terribly funny.
Pantomime has been with us, in various forms, since the sixteenth century. The version familiar to us is influenced by the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, a style of travelling comedy that moved around Italy and France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Much of the act was improvised, a comedic performance that involved characters, often masked, always in costume, which we would recognise today. The form took hold in Britain to become Harlequinade, with its main characters being a harlequin, a clown and a pair of lovers.
Panto in Britain was originally, as its name suggests, a mime. Silent comedy performed by mostly French actors escaping their own country’s clamp-down on unlicensed theatres, initially at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the long-departed Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre. During the nineteenth century, as stage machinery became more sophisticated, the shows became increasingly spectacular. Trapdoors and trick scenery became an essential part of the story, and the slapstick element took hold. Pantomime developed into a cleverly synchronised tapestry of comedy, song, slapstick, mime and satire loosely based around a well-known fairy story.
The titles are firmly established, though new ones come up all the time. Aladdin, Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Puss in Boots, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Mother Goose and Peter Pan are as popular now as they were a hundred years ago, though each performance will have its own signature. No two versions are alike.
The season for pantomime is short, and tickets sell out like chocolate cake at a village fête. It is now, well before a single mince pie is baked, that you might like to sit down, go online and search what pantos are coming up this year. This may seem all very early, but once word gets round that something is going to be special, seats suddenly disappear.
Tonight, I make a dish of lentils with cream and basil. Essentially a frugal autumn dish, a baked aubergine with a knubbly mound of creamed lentils heady with basil.
Aubergine with lentils and basil
Serves 4
aubergines – 2 large or 4 small
olive oil – 6 tablespoons
a lemon
onions, medium – 2
garlic – 4 cloves
thyme sprigs – 8
rosemary – 6 sprigs
chestnut mushrooms – 200g
Le Puy or other small lentils – 400g
double cream – 250ml
parsley, chopped – 3 tablespoons
basil – a good handful of leaves
Parmesan, grated – 75g
Halve the aubergines lengthways, then score the cut surfaces in a lattice fashion, slicing deeply into the heart of the flesh but without piercing the skin. Place them skin side down on a baking sheet, trickle generously with some of the olive oil, and season lightly. Halve the lemon and squeeze over the juice. Place under a hot grill, a good way from the heat source, and cook until deep golden-brown. The flesh should be soft and silky.
Peel and roughly chop the onions. Warm the remaining olive oil in a shallow pan, then add the onions, stir, and leave them to cook over a moderate heat. Peel and crush the garlic, then stir into the onions. Pull the leaves from the thyme sprigs. Remove the needles from the rosemary, chop finely, then stir, together with the thyme leaves, into the softening onions.
Quarter the mushrooms, combine with the onions and leave to soften and colour. Season with salt and a little black pepper, then leave to simmer, very gently,