A Comfort Eating Christmas

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian A podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life Because even as a restaurant critic I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled upon the sofa Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors. Hello friends. We find ourselves in the eye of a storm on the precipice of the big one. That's right. It's Christmas and I've done what I normally do at Christmas as a classic introverted extrovert.

0:58but I've taken myself off into the kitchen to do a little bit of baking. And while I do that, I'm going to listen back to my favourite Christmassy moments from the slew of celebrity guests who've come to my house to share their comfort foods with me over the years. OK, so I'm going to be knocking up today one of my all-time favourite Christmas recipes. This is Nigel Slater's ginger biscuits. If you're listening to this, Nigel, yes, I do want you on this podcast. Can you hear me? That is an invite. Part of a slow seduction to get you here over 2025. Where are my wooden spoons? Now, this tray of ginger biscuits is my traditional Christmas Day offering to my family.

1:49And the mark of a fine Christmas Day biscuit is that they get gobbled up fast. my challenge is to have them all eaten before the first argument. Ha! We just eat as we argue. I'm not being funny but I just think my brother shouldn't have taken my top gun tape on Christmas Day in 1985 if he doesn't want it to be brought up by Christmas morning at 11am every year. Is that me being wrong? Am I bad? Oh, I'm the bad one. Leave it Grace, leave it, it's Christmas. Okay, flour, eggs, surely they're in here. Check. Butter, butter. Check. Sugar. Sugar. I've got that dark muscovada sugar that's the good stuff.

2:33Cardamom. I think I have it somewhere. Hang on, hang on a minute.

2:39Cardamom. Best before 2019. Can I use this in a recipe? Okay, in tribute to my mother, I'm going to use this because she had things in her cupboard that were actually from 1973. through. I kid you not, we had a right clear out when you went, Mum. I booked a skit before an undertaker. Now, not too long ago, I had the wonderful TV chef and author Nadia Hussain on this podcast. She is the winner of, in my humble opinion, one of the best ever seasons of Great British Bake Off. Christmas is all about family traditions and Nadia told me about one of hers.

3:23because it's my birthday on Christmas day my dad would come home and he would wake us up in the middle of the night and say come on I've got turkey for you and we'd sit there and we'd eat this cold turkey and it was it just became a tradition to just sit there in the middle of the night on boxing day early in the morning and just have turkey and and and cold Bombay potatoes and that's downstairs around the table downstairs on the floor we'd put we in your pajamas just sat there like a bit disheveled half awake pillow creases yeah yeah disheveled half awake half naked sat there eating this turkey and then my mum would say why do you do this every single year I don't want them to break their sleep I want them to have a full night's sleep and dad would just like ignore my mum as he does and then we just sit there and eat it and and then we just go up to bed and mum would say brush your teeth and we'd never brush our teeth and we'd just go straight to bed I love it.

4:15They were some of the happiest moments.

4:21Oh God, I remember my parents bickering at Christmas too and it was always about the timings of the turkey. I think back to Christmas Day when I was a little girl and my father would buy a turkey and it was always just nearly too big for the oven and then it had to go in at about 4am and my mum used to get so annoyed about it all and he just wanted to build in time for it to rest before lunch oh god drove my mom mad ah christmas memories of my family that's what it's all about really isn't it right back to these gingerbread biscuits where was i oven now i need to preheat this oven and lightly butter a baking tray ha lightly i don't think i've ever lightly buttered anything in my entire life if i'm very honest it's christmas nothing is getting lightly buttered in this house until at least January.

5:14Right, 180 degrees. I love this oven. I love the fact that there's a red line because it tells idiots like me when it's ready. Let's never let me down. No, don't let me down at Christmas. Right, okay, I need to start mixing. I feel like a contestant of Great British Bake Off. I think I would do quite well, although I think Nadia might just beat me lightly, like her eggs. Ever since we had photographer and daughter of my favourite beetle, Mary McCartney, I looked differently at my Christmas lunch plate. You see, Mary let me into the culinary secrets of the McCartney family, namely their approach to Brussels sprouts.

6:00Mary, over to you. I've got cracking with this mixing. how do you feel about brussels sprouts i love them but i am wary of them i think that answer i think if i'm not going to put too fine a point in it i feel like we know each other now i think that they create violent wind yeah they can be smelly they can even be smelly when they're cooking my dad always like oh they're like a perfect little miniature cabbage but and i love cabbage but I love them sort of shredded, cut really thinly, and then I make them into like a stir fry for Christmas. So you only cook them for a second so they don't get too overcooked.

6:38And then I love them. I'm going to say that al dente Brussels sprouts may be the most lethal wind-wise of all, though. Nobody's... I wonder the way I do it. They're less... I don't remember getting wind from them, though. I'm going to have to experiment. If I ate them, I would just immediately go upstairs. Oh, my God. And then just hide until maybe the day after Boxing Day. I'm never making you that. Almost, I think the meals after Christmas are possibly more delicious. But do you know why you think? Because I agree. I agree. And why we think that is because we're antisocial and everyone's gone by that point, right?

7:17And we can do that in front of the TV. So we love the idea of Christmas and being bountiful. Everybody come, but the most delicious part is the one that you eat directly from the fridge when you've literally just got two roast potatoes on a plate.

7:38Okay. Cream the butter and sugar together. It's not very soft. It's quite hard to cream this together. See, baking, I actually love it. You set aside a lazy afternoon and then you just come in. Now, granted, the kitchen generally needs washed from top to bottom afterwards. You can't make biscuits without sometimes getting flour all over the floor. That's just the rules. unless you are one of those TikTok trad wives I've seen who seem to bake and cook and clean in a full face of makeup and a couture dress. Glaswegian drag queen superstar Lawrence Chaney came and come for eight here just after they took the crown in the second season of UK Drag Race.

8:33Turns out Lawrence is a home baker too. Black treacle, okay. for two tablespoons. Tablespoons. What I have my tablespoon. What me and my flatmate did, my flatmate's a drag queen called Kiko. The pandemic was the time for us to really get to know each other more and get to know what makes each other tick. And do you know what makes us tick? Baking at home. Now, I have to ask you and talk to you about, did you ever try during lockdown these mug cakes. I'm aware of their presence. However, I have never allowed myself to go there because they just seem so convenient. And I just can't let myself, because I just know that once I do it once, that'll be a serious habit.

9:26Oh, they are naughty. They are naughty. You know, normally when you're baking, it's this big palaver. You need to get the rolling pin out, the pans out. Preheat the oven to gas mark five. You literally pour ingredients into a mug and literally put it in the microwave and literally minutes later, there is a cake ready. You eat it with a spoon. A warm, sloppy cake. Warm, sloppy and moist.

10:02Oh, Lawrence, those words were on my heart. Right, where am I? I got distracted thinking about a mug cake. Focus, focus Gracie. Two tablespoons of this luscious, glossy black treacle. That's my luck. Now black treacle, one of those ingredients, only comes out for special occasions, mainly Christmas. And for the rest of the year you open the cupboard and it's just looking at you going, me, me today. And I have to say, I'm sorry Black Treacle I can't put you on my porridge Not today Does anybody else give the things in the cupboard Little voices So we've got the treacle And the butter and the sugar In a bowl It's all brown and glossy And it's already at that stage that If I had been a child I would have just immediately begun eating it by now Just eating butter and sugar Now speaking of the pandemic TV presenter Laura Whitmore came over and she remembered her Irish Christmases back in County Wicklow and how she hosted the family at her place in London when they weren't able to return to Ireland.

11:16Kat, you're not coming in. No, because you're the one that wants to go. No, no, no, Mama Leigh, no. I grew up with my mum. Then Christmas Day, there'd be like 15 of us around the table. and I was very close to my cousins and they were kind of like big sisters to me and yeah, so I was kind of Christmas meant and food and big dinners kind of bringing everyone together which was different to just me and my mum in the house. What do you do at Christmas for lunch? Christmas is just eating. The whole day, there's a lot of visiting so you go around the houses and you have your bit of sherry and you have like your Pringles and dip and you move along and then there's the turkey and my auntie Teresa always cooks the turkey, except last year because we were in London, we couldn't go back to Ireland, which is the first year ever.

12:04We actually had Christmas dinner here at this table. I don't want to do that again. That's a lot of pressure. A lot of pressure. And also Ian had his, everyone has their thing, the side dishes. So we had about three or four different types of potato. I was lucky that my mom was over here already and staying with us. So we had an Irish mammy, so it felt a little bit authentic. But normally it's Auntie Teresa who cooks the turkey. And it's the biggest turkey you've ever seen. And then the roast potatoes. They're so good. I just feel, not to be one big stereotype, but we just know how to make good potatoes in Ireland.

12:52Roast potatoes. I think they have to be in my top three foods. I could happily write a book called My Spud Life, where I waxed lyrical just about the roast potato. I think the chapter headings would be crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. When to salt and when to not. The day after, the night before. And obviously, the perfect condiment. back to the biscuits i have to break up these cardamom pods and crush the seeds they are going to go into the biscuit mix along with cinnamon ginger flour and egg yolks i've got to say i am a little frightened of cardamom because i think when i first started eating indian food years ago little girl in carlisle i'd certainly never experienced the taste sensation of cardamom and And I think that, well, you know about it.

13:49You always remember your first cardamom pod, don't you? How many do I need? Let me look at this recipe again. I'm going to say, is it maybe three? Eight cardamom pods, Nigel. Eight. Eight seems excessive, Nigel. I'm believing you. Six, seven, eight. I'm now going to add all of the other ingredients that's flour and that's cinnamon and egg yolks oh and ginger wouldn't be the first time that I wondered why that pie or cake didn't taste quite right and it turned out I'd left out the main ingredient right cinnamon

14:41a little bit of milk tiny little bit of milk to loosen this up now this has got a form of dough nigel slater you don't let me down this smells absolutely wonderful i'm putting some more milk at this. Did I put too much milk in? One of the most romantic descriptions of Christmas Day I have ever heard was from Grammy Award winning singer Gregory Porter. He painted me a picture of a typical Christmas Day. Take it away, Gregory Porter. There has to be some things in the air and the music is nat king cole his christmas album just nuts roasting on an open fire jack frost nipping at your nose that has to be flowing through the air yeah the smells have got to be the sweet potato, the turkey, the cinnamon, the allspice, the nutmeg, and this sweet and savory that is a Christmas dinner has to be mixing in the air.

15:58Do you use any of your mom's old recipes? Absolutely. But my mother's recipes, they're just in my hands. I don't need the paper. So that smell, I want my children to have that smell, the smell of my mother's house. So I've learned how to do those things and how to create that smell in the air. And yeah, the sweet potato pies, the candied yams, the cornbread dressing, the gravy, the turkey, mixing with the sound of music, music and food. It really connected to me at Christmas time. You've talked about songs of gifts. Just to get these festive vibes flowing, can you give me the gift of a Christmas song?

16:53Yes. Help me just to pass this test of time. I wish that I was blind. A strange thing to wish for. But I just can't unsee all this misery.

17:18But everything's not lost Cause Christmas and New Year's is coming on strong Everything's not lost Cause Christmas and New Year's is coming on strong Everything is not lost Cause Christmas and New Year's is coming on strong Good tidings of comfort and joy Comfort and joy This is my Christmas wish.

18:10I really did not think that when I started this podcast I would one day be sitting across my table from a Grammy winner in full song if you weren't feeling Christmassy vibes so far Well, you're damn well should be by now. Now, this seems like it could be a dough if your dough has the consistency of fresh tarmac. Maybe a little bit more flour. Just going to feel like a scullery made from Downton Abbey wielding this rolling pin. It's putting a pin here. The rolling pin's always a bit of a rogue item in a kitchen, isn't it? There's never anywhere that you can actually put it.

18:48There we go. Do you know, I'm quite proud of that because it has formed a very soft dough-like ball. I can't sing We Three Kings without going, One in a bus and one in a car. One in a scooter, pipping his scooter, wearing a wonder bra. One thing that takes centre stage and most of my brain capacity from mid-November onwards is presents. Who wants what? can i do it all from vintage does my mother-in-law really want another candle how old are my nieces and nephews now but when i was young i remember presents being oh they were such a big deal me and my brother could not sleep the night before when we were little kids we'd get sent to bed and we would just spend all night going has he been yet has he been yet and inevitably we would get up at four o 'clock in the morning now one guest i can't quite believe i had on this show a few christmases ago was the legend mr craig david and i asked him what was his favorite christmas present ever oh that's a real kind of toss-up between the sega mega drive which uh at those days was had like it came pre-loaded with like sonic the hedgehog was the first game And this was just at the cusp of computers going from Spectrum and Commodore, all these keyboard stuff, to actually a console.

20:22Did you have a Spectrum? I was a Commodore 64. And then I got the disk drive to go with it and the thought. And then I was able to get, you know, back then, to make it feel like, oh, you're getting the glossy version of it. You get like a big box version that would still have the tape inside. It just wouldn't be in the plastic tape. It would just be a bit bigger. Then the Mega Drive came. oh changed my life that was big but i'd say the one that trumped that if i'm being honest is the my technics 12 10 record deck that one game changer i got it christmas for the deck i got my birthday's may 5th so may i got the other deck uh from my parents so both of them both decks were from parents and i'd saved up at the same time to get the mixer at my birthday so come may 5th i was we were good we were good to go what was your first present because i was really intrigued like what you were going to say because i was just oh god you know i was going to say that i remember getting a zx spectrum 48k and i had to share it with my brother and i remember we had um jet set willy and daily thompson's to cathlon and you had to like do the y and the n to run really really really fast i know those days you did how many joysticks got smashed up from that one game because the button got stuck because you had people going ham with that i It changed everything.

21:41Changed everything for just normal people. It was like suddenly the world was in technicolour all of a sudden. That's how I couldn't agree more. I wonder if my brother has still got our 48k ZX Spectrum. Oh, they were magical times. I think we spent all Christmas playing Daley Thompson's Decathlon. Lay the biscuits on the buttered baking tray. That's someone's car being stolen for Christmas. I think that's... Oh! No, I think that was Sandra arriving on his sleigh. He's here! Okay, so I'm going to cut these biscuits. So this is the best bit. This is the bit that if I was a little girl, I'd be begging to help with.

22:25Let's cut these. Okay, so they're going in. They're going in, guys.

22:33Good luck, little gingerbread biscuits! I think it's... You also have to... You always have to show support to the things you're cooking. OK, I don't know about you, but around my multi-generational Christmas table, we've collectively learned through bitter experience to avoid discussing anything that constitutes a culture war. Almost as controversial as the class politics around cheese. Now that can get fraught. But who better to bring the cheese home than my two favourite Christmas elves? Michael Ball and Alfie Bo. Now, to be honest, having this duo at my house felt like being at home with my brother times two.

23:17And that is a compliment. I've got to set up the scene, though. You've had dinner. You've got a fire going. You've got an old black and white Christmas movie on the telly. You've got a nice bottle of port. It's all cosy. You're under blankets. You've got your slippers on. You've got your best Christmas sweater and all that. And then out comes a cheese plate. Bam! Have you seen that? That's a good cheese plate. I mean, what we've got is two types of soft cheese. Is that a brie? Camembert. Is it one of them? That is a camembert. That's a camembert. The camembert is nearly running away. It's stinky.

23:54That's making it look like it's trying to escape. And pungent, yeah. And then we've got this rather stinky, veiny Stilton. And that's like a goat's cheese, I think, isn't it? G goat's cheese. Being from the north-west of England. Yes, ma 'am. I'm saying this is in north-west. England person. I didn't know how to slice cheese properly in front of the middle classes. Have you learned that over the years? I've been cutting the cheese for years.

24:23Do you nose the cheese? Do you know what I mean? What's that? What's the using of cheese? So when you have a camembert, there is a very special way that you're meant to cut it, which doesn't offend polite society. What? Did you not? No. You see, I thought you would have known this. No. You haven't heard about you like a man that could slice a... I can blag most things, but I've never heard of nosing a cheese. So you have the round circle of the cheese and then you have, you've got a triangle. Yeah. You don't just cut the end off because you're cutting, the pointy bit is the best bit. That's the bit that's the gooey.

25:04And that's why you cut that off and give it to yourself. And that is why you would be banned from France. Yeah, and the upper classes would be very upset. What do you do then? You have to slice it in slices. That means that everybody gets a little bit of the best bits of everything. And with the blue cheese, you have to weigh up, almost like it's an ordinance survey map, where all the blue bits are, and try and get everyone to have a bit of the blue. See, with a blue, I normally use a spoon. What was that smoky cheese where you always used to have it at? Bavarian smoked cheese. I mean, it was the most plasticky tasting thing, but I loved it.

25:41It comes in a brown sheath. That's exactly right. And it's like... It's very adaptable. It's very... It's like... It looks rude. And you always kind of ended up taking it to the couch with a knife and just cutting this off, but it's in place. That's so right, Grace. Oh that's shameful but true. 30 seconds to go. Should probably stop eating leftover dough and get them out.

26:15That is so Christmassy. They look amazing. They look like little plump gingerbread biscuits. I've got to say that they're quite clearly home baked because they're all different shapes but isn't that the best thing people it's not the best thing about Christmas when you make things yourself and it's all a bit wonky just like we are people are wonky aren't they and they're still good nice good biscuit in the middle listener if I could I would send each and every one of you, one of these little ginger biscuits, down the microphone and into your speaker. I think Willy Wonka tried to design something along those lines, but I heard he just couldn't get the funding.

27:08Merry Christmas, comfort eaters. Thank you for comfort eating with me this year. I really mean that. And here's to comfort eating like a horse in 2025. I'm going to leave you with another Christmas song. Craig David. Take it away. Okay. I don't know all the lyrics off the heart, but let me see. Let's try and style it then. Okay. Have yourself a merry little Christmas Let the yield tide gate From now on Our troubles will be far away oh yeah have yourself a merry little Christmas Grace I love your vibes next time you're left to come round mine for a little cookie dough cookie dough cookie dough yeah yeah that vibes don't know something like that thank you so much thank you oh you are amazing and you've been a wonderful guest thank you thank you so much and thank you for the song do you know something that damn you got a little tear in my eye and I'm trying to thank you for listening to comfort eating this episode was produced by Hattie Moyer and the mixing and sound design is by Solomon King.

28:52The music was written by Axel Cacoutier and our executive producer is Lucy Greenwell. If you love comfort eating, go and leave us a review and you can follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

29:12Hello, comfort eaters. A final word from me. We have a very exciting episode coming out next week. To welcome in the new year, we have the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, on how he feels about eating a donut with his face on. A rice paper picture of my face on a donut, which I had to cut. It's very weird cutting yourself. It's very strange. I don't recommend it. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.