Festive puddings

Now I’ve seen it all. The bread shop, under Kedassia supervision no less, is selling “festive puddings”. “Festive puddings”! You know what? They are dome shaped and they come wrapped in brightly coloured foil. If I didn’t know better I might think these were kosher Christmas puddings. But just to check I asked the assistant. “Are these the sort of thing that, erm, you know, the other lot eat at their festival around this time of year?” I said to her. I have no idea why I said it like that. It just seemed wrong to say the words Christian or Christmas in the bread shop on a Friday morning when I was buying my challah. I guess I was worried that it would somehow make my purchase treyf.

Anyway, the girl told me she didn’t know. Why should she? When would a nice frum girl ever have tasted a traditional Christmas, I mean, festive pudding?

After marvelling at the absurdity of this I decided to go the whole hog, if you’ll excuse the expression, and bought one. You see, the thing is, I love a Christmas pudding and while the supermarkets do a very good line in vegetarian versions, I feel obliged to buy kosher if it’s available.

In fact this year I’m going to have a kosher Christmas. The kids will collect their presents from under the Chanukah bush after we light the candles on Christmas eve and I’ll be up early the following morning to get the oven on in order to start cooking the turkey.  I have a special recipe that involves draping rashers of fake bacon made from quorn over the top. It doesn’t keep the turkey moist or tasty, but at least it looks authentic. To accompany the meat will be boiled carrots, brussels sprouts, roast potatoes, mini viennas wrapped in more fake bacon rashers (I call them cows in nylons) and a selection of stuffings, namely cholent and kishke. We’ll eat, drink (lemonade) and be argumentative.

Then at three in the afternoon we’ll all settle in front of the TV to watch the Queen’s Chanukah message to the nation.  No doubt a tear will well up in my eye as I lament the loss of the empire while tucking into my festive pudding along with a big dollop of non-dairy cream. Bleuch.

Originally posted December 19th 2008