39 Dishes from the First Christmas Menu, Published in 1660

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1. A collar of brawn [pork that is rolled, tied, and boiled in wine and seasonings]. 2. Stewed Broth of Mutton marrow bones. 3. A grand Sallet [salad]. 5. A breast of veal in stoffado [stuffed veal]. 6. A boil’d partridge.

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Oysters

7. A chine [a cut of meat containing backbone] of beef, or sirloin roast. Here’s May’s recipe: To roast a Chine, Rib, Loin, Brisket, or Fillet of Beef Draw them with parsley, rosemary, tyme, sweet marjoram, sage, winter savory, or lemon, or plain without any of them, fresh or salt, as you please; broach it, or spit it, roast it and baste it with butter; a good chine of beef will ask six hours roasting.

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For the sauce take strait tops of rosemary, sage-leaves, picked parsley, tyme, and sweet marjoram; and strew them in wine vinegar, and the beef gravy; or otherways with gravy and juice of oranges and lemons. Sometimes for change in saucers of vinegar and pepper.

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Oysters

8. Minced pies. 9. A Jegote [sausage] of mutton with anchove sauce. 10. A made dish of sweet-bread (Here’s a recipe from A New Booke of Cookerie by John Murrell, published in 1615: Boyle, or roast your Sweet-bread, and put into it a fewe Parboyld Currens, 

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Oysters

a minst Date, the yolkes of two new laid Egs, a piece of a Manchet grated fine.  Season it with a little Pepper, Salt, Nutmeg, and Sugar, wring in the iuyce of an Orenge, or Lemon, and put it betweene two sheetes of puft-paste, or any other good Paste: and eyther bake it, or frye it, whether you please.)

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Oysters

11. A swan roast. 12. A pasty of venison. 13. A kid with a pudding in his belly. 14. A steak pie. 15. A hanch of venison roasted. 16. A turkey roast and stuck with cloves.

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Oysters

17. A made dish of chickens in puff paste. 18. Two bran geese roasted, one larded [larding is inserting or weaving strips of fat in the meat, sometimes with a needle]. 19. Two large capons, one larded. 20. A Custard.

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Oysters

1. A young lamb or kid. 2. Two couple of rabbits, two larded. 3. A pig souc’t [sauced] with tongues. 4. Three ducks, one larded. 5. Three pheasants, 1 larded.

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Oranges and Lemons

6. A Swan Pye [the showpiece: a pie with the dead swan’s head, neck, and wings sticking up from it]. 7. Three brace of partridge, three larded. 8. Made dish in puff paste.

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Oranges and Lemons

9. Bolonia sausages, and anchoves, mushrooms, and Cavieate, and pickled oysters in a dish. 10. Six teels, three larded. 11. A Gammon of Westphalia Bacon. 12. Ten plovers, five larded.

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Oranges and Lemons

13. A quince pye, or warden pie [pears or quinces peeled and poached in syrup, then baked whole in a pie]. 14. Six woodcocks, 3 larded. 15. A standing Tart in puff-paste, preserved fruits, Pippins, &c. 16. A dish of Larks.

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Oranges and Lemons

17. Six dried neats [calf] tongues 18. Sturgeon. 19. Powdered [salted] Geese. Jellies. And you know, nothing says Christmas like powdered geese and jellies.

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Oranges and Lemons