"Oh Come all ye Tasteful"

~ The Foodie’s Guide to a Millionaire’s Christmas Feast – by Ian Flitcroft

I have been sent the most delightful quirky little book about Christmas food to review and I must say … I like it! So there you have it.

In more detail ..

I was hooked from the start, the first paragraph reads …

“For the unprepared Christmas lunch can be a veritable minefield. Like the Noel-tide truce in Ypres during World War I, this meal is often both surreal and dangerous.”

However be warned – this book, as its sub-title suggests, is about extravagance possibly beyond your wildest dreams, lovely to read and think about but not that easy to achieve.  On the other hand if you leave the gold leaf out of the roast potatoes, for instance, but follow the rest of the instructions then, as he roasts his exactly the same way as I do mine, I can confidently say you will still be very pleased with the result at a faction of the price.

His Scrambled Eggs Roulette recipe is a really fun idea and can be as cheap or expensive as you like as it would be easy to make substitutions for the foie gras and the truffles. I also agree with Mr. Flitcroft in his insistence that milk should not be used in scrambled eggs.  (I agree with him on a lot of things from which I deduce that he know what he is talking about!)

There is a truly gorgeous sounding recipe for Smoking Bishop, a mulled wine involving baked and caramelised oranges and a bottle of port, plus the wine, of course. I love mulled wine and make my own mulled wine syrup in the run up to Christmas so that I can enjoy a glass at the drop of a paper hat, but when I’m a bit flush I may try it. 

The partridge cooked with pears and port also sounds wonderful and if I never get round to cooking it I will certainly be trying the port and cocoa mixture it is cooked in, probably quite soon – Mr. Flitcroft says it is ...

“quite a heady mixture and worth a taste”.

I also love and empathise with his suggestion that whilst cooking one has an occasional glass of brandy and I hope one day to try fried lichen!

So – not your usual cookbook but very entertaining (especially for foodies) with some useful ideas such as how to roast chestnuts without an open fire or make your Christmas pud flame spectacularly. There are some good recipes which, if you are not a millionaire, you could adjust by leaving out some of the more extravagant ingredients, and some interesting information – I didn’t know you could get edible myrrh!

This little book would make a great present for any foodies you might know. I’m just trying to decide who to give a copy to.

Oh Come All Ye Tasteful is published by PaperBooks and you can get it from Amazon and probably lots of other places too.




Speaking of Christmas cookbooks you can get from Amazon - here is my contribution to the genre!

Catering for Christmas can be time consuming, tiring and a bit stressy, so I thought I’d offer some suggestions to make it quicker, easier, more relaxed and perhaps more impressive!

Yule be Glad you Read It!