Christmas Meals: Madeline Shanahan on the History of Food and Feasting

Historically Thinking

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Christmas Meals: Madeline Shanahan on the History of Food and Feasting

From plum pudding to barbecued seafood, the story of how we feast at Christmas. Spoiler: it has been a story of meat, fat, and alcohol

Historically Thinking

Dec 23, 2019

Introduction

“There is a moment that comes to so many of us in the late afternoon on Christmas Day,” writes my guest Madeline Shanahan,:

…when we look at the postmeal dining table festooned with scrunched paper crowns, splattered with cranberry sauce and gravy, and graced with a half-eaten hacked-up plum pudding, and we are torn between cracking on with the inevitable tidy-up and retreating to the sofa for a double Baileys and a snooze. In this moment we vow that we ‘will never eat again,’ and our resolve lasts for an hour or so, until a box of Cadbury Roses chocolates is passed around and we somehow find room. If excitement and anticipation are the feelings almost universally shared by children at 5:00 a.m. on Christmas morning, being stuffed and exhausted are the ones that unite their parents come 5:00 p.m.

Christmas turns out to have always been about feasting, even from before the time that it was Christmas. Feasting is about excess; but feasting is also about fasting, which is a discipline far removed from a world of dieting. Christmas celebrations even in the 21st century retain a cultural ethic of feasting, focusing on what were once luxury foods: meats, sugary things, and alcohol. These used to be luxurious because they were expensive. Now they are luxurious because they taste forbidden.

The Story of Christmas Feasting

Madeline Shanahan has investigated the history of Christmas dinner as it has developed in the English-speaking world, and shared her findings in her book Christmas Food and Feasting: A History.

In this conversation we range far beyond the Dickensian Christmas, from spiced beef in Ireland to seafood barbecues at the “Antipodal Christmas.”

About the Guest

Madeline Shanahan holds a PhD in Archaeology from University College Dublin and a First Class Honours degree in Historical Archaeology from the University of Sydney. She is Director of Consulting for Extent Heritage in Sydney and has worked as a heritage consultant in Dublin, Melbourne, and Sydney. A multidisciplinary practitioner, her primary area of expertise is heritage interpretation.