Vicar’s ‘alternative’ Christmas dinner

“IF your festive bird has the personality of a damp sock, give the turkey a dignified retirement,” says the team vicar of Ipsden and North Stoke.

Christmas Day for Rev John Blair can be difficult, trying to balance parish and family expectations, but an alternative dinner is never missed.

After enduring years of eating turkey, described as the “culinary equivalent of a beige jumper”, Rev Blair and his daughter Fiona staged a festive coup while living in Ireland to explore tastier, juicier and more joyful options.

He said: “Turkey at Christmas is like the relative who turns up every year, drinks all the sherry and falls asleep during the speech.

“We tolerate it, we carve it and we chew through it, but do we really enjoy what is the culinary equivalent of a beige jumper, reliable, widely tolerated, and desperately in need of a makeover? If your festive bird has the personality of a damp sock, this year give the turkey a dignified retirement and replace it with something that actually tastes like celebration.”

Rev John called Ballykinlar, the local butcher, to seek advice, who agreed to source new meat for their family Christmas spread.

He said: “We tried crocodile, kangaroo, ostrich, pheasant, duck and even a plain old extra-large organic chicken, all of which have been revisited periodically throughout the years.

“One year, we served turkey thighs filled with exotic stuffing mixtures to moisten and sweeten the otherwise dry casing. It’s funny how that went down fairly well but not for me.”

While various cuts of ham, lamb, beef and pork are always on hand, his personal favourite is ostrich. He said: “It’s a jolly expensive time of the year, to be fair, but the cooking and presentation experiments are such fun, so I don’t mind the butcher laughing all the way to the bank.

“We did have one rebellion on our hands when the clergy in the Deanery made me promise not to serve kangaroo again. Their wives freaked out when they discovered what the lovely meat actually was. It painfully reminded them of their cuddly toys.”

This year, he hopes to entertain his Sicilian guests by serving osso buco with gremolata, an Italian classic which features braised veal shanks topped with a green sauce made with chopped parsley, lemon zest and garlic.

He will also dish up a plain turkey crown wrapped in bacon for a relative and an additional partridge for himself to sit alongside the traditional ham and trimmings.

Rev Blair said: “Christmas isn’t about clinging to culinary habits that make us miserable. It’s about joy, generosity and gathering, not a test of endurance. If your festive bird is less than succulent, choose something that sings. Feel free to rebel and serve something that makes people smile, not reach for the gravy boat in desperation.

“Afterwards, sit back and watch the real tradition unfold, people laughing, plates emptied and conversation thriving. That, more than any prescribed bird, is the real taste of Christmas.”

The original nativity menu featured simple bread, lentils and figs, not turkey.

Rev Blair said: “In the end, Christmas is not about balancing expectations at all but about embracing them. The sacred and the silly, the solemn and the sparkling, the midnight hush and the midday fizz.

“If I drift into sleep with a smile on my face, it is because I know that Christ has come again into the muddle of ordinary life and that is more than enough.”