Category Archives: Christmas

as promised: a festive George Orwell

In his provocatively titled essay Why Socialists Don’t Believe in Fun (published in 1943 under the pseudonym “John Freeman”) George Orwell discussed the red herring that “happiness” and “fun” have been rolled together into. “Dickens is remarkable, indeed almost unique, among modern writers,” he wrote, ” in being able to give a convincing picture of happiness.” And “happiness,” as we well know, is integral to our modern notion of what Christmas is all about. Correspondingly – and the essay was published in December – he begins his essay with a description of how this works:

A Christmas Carol…was read to Lenin on his deathbed and according to his wife, he found its ‘bourgeois sentimentality’ completely intolerable. Now in a sense Lenin was right: but if he had been in better health he would perhaps have noticed that the story has interesting sociological implications. To begin with, however thick Dickens may lay on the paint, however disgusting the ‘pathos’ of Tiny Tim may be, the Cratchit family give the impression of enjoying themselves. They sound happy as, for instance, the citizens of William Morris’s News From Nowhere don’t sound happy. Moreover and Dickens’s understanding of this is one of the secrets of his power their happiness derives mainly from contrast. They are in high spirits because for once in a way they have enough to eat. The wolf is at the door, but he is wagging his tail. The steam of the Christmas pudding drifts across a background of pawnshops and sweated labour, and in a double sense the ghost of Scrooge stands beside the dinner table. Bob Cratchit even wants to drink to Scrooge’s health, which Mrs Cratchit rightly refuses. The Cratchits are able to enjoy Christmas precisely because it only comes once a year. Their happiness is convincing just because Christmas only comes once a year. Their happiness is convincing just because it is described as incomplete.

Of course, anyone on hard times, or who has lost someone in the previous year, or indeed been bereaved at Christmas (a surprisingly common time to die, as to be born and to break up), already knows that Christmas can be a trial, which teaches us philosophy the hard way. This is the secular version of TS Eliot’s revelation in ‘The Journey of the Magi’, which I think I recall quoting from the other day.

But putting it purely politically, or sociologically, and as an  underpinning to the now-traditional Christmas materialism (itself an extrapolation of the feasting), this idea of happiness at Christmas is a potent amalgam of our ambitions, desires and fears. (What are the sales if not panic buying?) (On which note, I’ve bought three things in the sales: a pair of wedge-heeled Chelsea boots I’ve wanted since September, which aren’t in the sale; a suede jacket, which was secondhand & thus not in the sale; and a string of lights marked down from £14 to £10. I’m thinking I should stock up on some household supplies before the VAT goes up…)

Now, in the Baroque household as in so very many others there isn’t a vast sense of prosperity this year. Your correspondent was unemployed for most of last year, has converted her savings into a couple of debts, and is on a temporary contract. I don’t mind saying this, as to pretend otherwise would be a spurious denial of the Zeitgeist (which is, as we know, about to be pink), in the face of the many people who are not being allowed to ignore it. Thousands of people are expecting a letter, carefully dated tomorrow or the next day, telling them they are about to undergo a “consultation” about redundancy. Others, on temporary contracts, will simply be told their contracts won’t be renewed. (Should I have bought those boots??) It might even be like what happened to a certain person now far from here this time last year, at the Department of Work and Pensions, when she went in for a meeting to prioritise her workload and was told they’d scrapped overnight both the workstreams she was working on, and that she was no longer needed – “But we’ll pay you to the end of the day.” They, we, are not taking next Christmas for granted. (I’m not taking those boots for granted! I justified them by buying the smart black suede ones, not the funky grey leopard-print ones. Job-hunting, not fun-hunting, boots.)

The middle Baroque offspring is in the family seat in Woodstock, New York (“um, there’s not much in Woodstock”) with the Baroque brother, where presents this year were limited to the stockings; and there was a slight guitar-shaped hole in our tiny festivities this year. Not only that but, because of the proximity-by-proxy, a slight brother-shaped hole as well. (I have little time for people who complain about having to see their families at Christmas: try not seeing them for Christmas ever again, and then come back and talk about it.)

In short, Christmas is as much about absences and lacks as it is about plenitude. Dickens understood that the goose was tasty in relation to the lack of it the rest of the time. The joy of being with the people you love is keener because of those who aren’t there, and even peril to those (Tiny Tim served a dramatic purpose, of course) who are. This sentimentality of abundance, and the saccharine love-mush, are strongest, it seems to me, in times and places that are a bit hard – where lots of people are suffering the lack of these modest human comforts, and the ones who have them are themselves a bit hardened. Food is most fetishised when we have so much choice it hardly matters any more. Family is fetishised when we consider them somehow disposable. Plenitude becomes a kind of moral virtue, to be celebrated as such by the worthy who have achieved it. Excess becomes righteousness.

This year, by the way, I noticed a couple of things when I was food shopping. One, a distinct lack of mincemeat. What was that about? I had to go ask, and the employee directed me to s spot on the bottom shelf, under the crackers and biscuits, where there was a small pile of jars. I’m sure that usually they have great trolleys of the stuff blocking the ends of the aisles… And second, on the day before Christmas Eve, Sainsbury’s had run out of mince pies! All they had left were a few sorry boxes of value ones, but I needed them for a food hamper for the aged, so not much use really. Some sources predict that food prices could rise by 20% in the coming year.

Now, changing tack slightly, this Dickensian Christmas message must have been both strengthened in its essential nature, and weakened in its saccharine one, by conditions during the War. When you know the real value of things and the precariousness of them, you don’t have to fetishise them. This brings us back to that goose, because in 1946 – right after the War ended – Orwell was commissioned by the British Council to write an essay on British Cookery. It was a while at that point since roast goose had been in abundance; by that stage even the home audience probably needed some reminding about how things could be done, so it’s a shame the piece was never published at the time. It would have been bedtime reading in many households, I’m pretty sure. Orwellianly, it’s forensic in its sociology – who has “tea” and who has “luncheon” – and it is also mouth-watering, and strangely domestic:

Cakes are one of the specialities of British – more particularly of Scottish – cooking, and, like puddings, they are too numerous to be listed exhaustively: one can merely indicate a few that are outstandingly good. The best, and the most characteristic of Britain, is the rich, heavy plum cake (1) which is so impregnated with spices and chopped fruits as to be almost black in colour. In their fullest glory those cakes are studded all over with blanched almonds, and at Christmas time they are even richer by being covered with a layer of almond paste and then coated all over with icing sugar. There are, of course, many other varieties of plum cake – a “plum” cake simply means one that has currents or sultanas in it – ranging down to quite plain and inexpensive ones. The richest plum cake, which contain rum or brandy, improve with keeping, and it is usual to make them some weeks or months before it is intended to eat them.

I strongly recommend this new, domesticated George Orwell: picture him in his pinny, with a tea towel over his shoulder, stirring in the raisins with a giant wooden spoon… rolling out the marzipan with a deft pastry-chef’s hand (all the cooler for rolling, poor thing, for his tubercular chill). Here are his recipes for plum cake and Christmas pudding. Next year we can all have a…

George Orwell Christmas!

PLUM CAKE.

Ingredients:

¾ 1b butter
½ 1b sugar
4 eggs
¾ 1b flour
¼ lb crystallised cherries
¼ ib raisins
¼ ib sultanas
¼ lb chopped almonds
¼ lb mixed candied peel
The grated rind of 1 lemon and 1 orange
½ teaspoonful of mixed spice
A pinch of salt
1 glass brandy

Method. Beat the butter and sugar to a cream; add each egg separately and beat until the mixture is stiff and uniform. Sift the flour with the mixed spice and the salt, stir well into the creamed mixture, add the raisins (stoned beforehand), the cherries cut in halves, and the sultanas, the candied peel cut into small pieces, the grated lemon and orange rind, add the brandy. Mix thoroughly, put into a round tin lined with greased paper, put into a hot oven for 10 to 15 minutes, then reduce the heat and bake slowly for 3 ½ hours.

CHRISTMAS PUDDING.

Ingredients:

1 lb each of currants, sultanas & raisins
2 ounces sweet almonds
1 ounces bitter almonds
4 ounces mixed peel
½ lb brown sugar
½ lb flour
¼ lb breadcrumbs
½ teaspoonful salt
½ teaspoonful grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoonful powdered cinnamon
6 ounces suet
The rind and juice of 1 lemon
5 eggs
A little milk
1/8 of a pint of brandy, or a little beer

Method. Wash the fruit. Chop the suet, shred and chop the peel, stone and chop the raisins, blanch and chop the almonds. Prepare the breadcrumbs. Sift the spices and salt into the flour. Mix all the dry ingredients into a basin. Heat the eggs, mix them with the lemon juice and the other liquids. Add to the dry ingredients and stir well. If the mixture is too stiff, add a little more milk. Allow the mixture to stand for a few hours in a covered basin. Then mix well again and place in well-greased basins of about 8 inches diameter. Cover with rounds of greased paper. Then tie the tops of the basins over the floured cloths if the puddings are to be boiled, or with thick greased paper if they are to be steamed. Boil or steam for 5 or 6 hours. On the day when the pudding is to be eaten, re-heat it by steaming it for 3 hours. When serving, pour a large spoonful of warm brandy over it and set fire to it.

In Britain it is unusual to mix into each pudding one or two small coins, tiny china dolls or silver charms which are supposed to bring luck.

N.b., I stood in the fridge doorway and ate two spoonfuls of brandy cream today.