By Eileen Keighley
Editor’s Note: The next two editions will include submissions from a writers’ workshop, led by local resident Christine Fugate. All are fiction, except as noted.
As my first American Christmas without family from across the pond, we’re breaking with tradition to go to a local restaurant. There are a wide variety in Laguna to choose from, but it is shortened by my one and only stipulation: the menu must feature raisins.
Christmas is full of personal traditions that remind us of something or someone. For some it’s the color red, the ugly sweater or decorating the tree with well-worn baubles in a particular order. For me its raisins, the more the merrier. Christmas is my perfect excuse to celebrate and give raisins the recognition they deserve as a culinary star steeped in my family traditions. But it’s got to be grade A raisins dried from big dark grapes. Sultanas from golden grapes and currants from little tiddly grapes just won’t do.
My Christmas festivities always kick off with mince pies, which also provide the perfect frame for juicy raisins. In the Middle Ages, the mince in the pies was made from meat and the pies symbolized Jesus’ cradle from the Nativity story, but Georgian ancestors showed off their status by the shape of their mince pies and happily this competitiveness is still thriving. So, with carols playing, the log fire crackling, our annual mince pie cook-off begins.
As my family and friends pit themselves against each other, the true spirit of Christmas or otherwise comes out while debating the best shape, what pastry to use and the potential for a modern twist. My sister says filo is all the rage this year along with chocolate. An aunt likes them served cold. No arguments, please. The answer is warm with a mixture of puff and short crust pastry, and never chocolate!
A warning, though, make enough as they won’t last long, not if you have children or husbands who pretend that Santa ate them along with Rudolph’s carrots.
With the mince pies out of the oven and before they’re scoffed from the cooling tray, it’s time to check on the raisins soaking luxuriously in Dad’s homemade brandy ready for the Christmas pudding. Since October we have been gathering in the kitchen to stir the fruit to intensify flavors. As we do, I remember my father’s stories of how the Puritans banned raisin pudding for being decadent and how we owe it to the Victorians for pardoning them and penning a song in their honor!
So, as we sing “hooray for the Christmas pudding” I see my family, for just one brief moment forgetting differences and enjoying each other’s company. In celebration of this moment and with the aid of yet more brandy, the pudding is ceremonially set on fire to cheers and joyful screams from my young nephews staring at the jumping blue flames and waiting expectantly to see if they’d find a silver coin hidden in their pudding. Meantime grandpa would sit quietly nursing his personal stash of extra strong “brandy butter,” a peculiar and unique mixture of brandy, powdered sugar and butter, hoping that no one notices he’s just having a little pudding with his brandy butter.
I love these traditions. They remind me of everything I love about the Christmas holidays: family, friends and hope for the future, while still celebrating past traditions.
Make my Christmas and keep the tradition alive. Is anyone out there including raisins in their menu? Even a hint? I hear they pair particularly well with wonderful Californian pinot noir.
Eileen Keighley has lived in the Laguna area for five years and is a student of Christine Fugate’s Writers Workshop in Laguna Beach.
