Christmas food
A thin time
Marika Hanbury Tenison
White Christmas, wet Christmas, whatever the weather, 1975 is once more going to-be a weighty Christmas for most of us. Inflation is about to strike yet again, not only to the purse strings this time but also to the waistline. Year after year we swear we will eat in moderation, year after year the good. resolutions break down and we gorge regardless only to regret it
bitterly in the chill of the New Year. Stuffing ourselves is as much a part of Christmas as stuffing the traditional bird. It is a universal problem. Americans, in the New World, do it at Thanksgiving on cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Swedes, in their more formal way, do it on schnapps and smorgasbord and the Scots in the Highlands do it, mainly at Hogmanay, on a surfeit of Scotch.
The bitterness of Christmas bulges lie not so much in the increase of weight and the uncomfortable tightening of the belt that usually comes at about eight o'clock on Christmas Evening, but in the unquestionable fact that although the extra weight took only a few days to put on it will take three, four or five times as long to take off. Those few days of indugence lead to weeks of misery as you try to get back into shape for an annual shulsh down the ski slopes, bikinied gambols in the Caribbean sun, play your part in the local rugger rnatch or even just feel at ease in your everyday clothes.
Take heart, the outlook appears depressing but, as with every other problem in life, there are tricks, dodges and subterfuges that can help you keep your metabolism in balance without (most important) hurting the feelings of the cook in the house who has been stocking up the deep freeze with goodies for the past three months or your many Christmas hosts who have been saving up all year to lead you to a groaning board and an overflowing jug. Think slim, and with determination it is possible to triumph over the hazards of being potentially killed by kindness and over-eating this Christmas, emerging at the end of the trial with a fiat tummy and a glow of sylph like satisfaction.
Treat this annual battle of the bulge coolly, with detachment, remembering that everyone else is out to get you. Your hosts, your friends and your family all have the same problems and no one wants to be alone as they give way to temptation. They will press you to every kind of calorific glory, heap up your plate with seconds of goose and plump plum pudding and snarl if you turn down a sixth pint of bitter or a last glass of warm claret.
Take stock of your normal daily intake of food and consider the facts — every ounce more you eat per day over that normal intake is going to turn into fat unless you take steps to prevent it. What you lose on the roundabout you gain even more quickly on the swings.
First, quickly, before it is too late, weigh yourself and continue to weigh yourself every day right through the holiday. An increase of two pounds is inevitable, anything else is disastrous. Get off to a good start by fasting for a couple of days before the parties get under way; this will not only give you a little leeway but also tighten your stomach slightly making you less inclined to gorge when the time comes. Cut out breakfast or just stick to black coffee and toast; start each morning with a glass of lemon juice and hot water with no sugar and cut out in-between meal nibbling completely.
I am not, by the way, suggesting trying to cut down on anyone's fun. Christmas does only come once a year and certainly we should make the best of it but there is no need, let's face it, to be an absolute glutton and less still to be downright greedy. What I suggest, as an alternative, is to cut down when possible, eat plenty of the non-fattening foods you enjoy and treat the rest with moderation. If you must take sugar in your tea or coffee, for instance, now is the time to change it for an artificial sweetener like Sweetex; ask for low calorie mineral tonic or bitter lemon to go with your long drinks, be lavish with the brussels sprouts at the Christmas dinner table but go very easy on the stuffings, especially that calorie-packed chestnut variety.
The cocktail round before Christmas often does the worst harm — all those office parties, open house at your neighbours and the duty dos you can't get out of. A form of blotting paper is essential to keep relatively sober but take it in the form of a spoonful of yogurt and one of honey before you start instead of attacking those horrid damp canapes I swear get carried by caterers straight from one party to another, night after night. And, while you are at it, keep away from the nuts and, if your head can take it, stick to shorts rather than long fizzY drinks, plenty of rocks will bring down the alcoholic effect, and have the guts to water the aspidistras with every fourth shot.
If you know you are going to be subjected to a long and heavy dinner party with course after course cooked in butter and swimming in cream, prepare for that particular battle in advance. Tighten your belt, if you have one, t° jog your memory and eat one of those commercial slimming biscuits to fill you up a bit before the fray begins. Pile your plate with the greens, salads and lean meat, but cut potatoes, fat and skin to a minimum. Eat slowly as You can, savouring each mouthful and enjoying it to the full, avoiding being put in the position of having to have a second helping because no one else has finished and it would look rude if You refused. White wine has less calories than red so if you are offered both stick to white throughout the meal. And unless you swoon over sweets pass them over in favour of the cheese, eaten with celery and without biscuits and butter. Inevitably, some of the food put front of you will be too glorious for even the most iron-willed to refuse; a dish of caviar perhaps, an unlimited quantity of oysters or a basket of marron glaces. Then is the time to throw caution to the wind, be a pig if you want to provided you remember to pay for your excesses the very next meal and no later.
There are, of course, alternatives to these prevention is better than cure suggestions. One weight-troubled bachelor I know takes his dog with him to dinner parties when his hosts Will wear it. Jean-the-Lean she's called; she sits quiet as a mouse by her master's feet accepting the scraps of fat and starch he surreptitiously slips her. Christmas is her idea of heaven yet after each gorgeous meal she emerges with a still lean and hungry look, eyes pathetic with the glint of starvation while her master, poor thing, picks at his plate and seems to get heavier just by sniffing the rich smells around him. But without her, he swears, he'd lose his control completely.
Another friend just gives up the ghost and lets herself go over the holiday itself then books into a health farm for the two weeks after Christmas for an agonising and expensive ordeal. Yet another friend follows the feasting with a slimming blitz of the old-fashioned jockey's menu, Stilton and port for breakfast, lunch and dinner (he loses the pounds but ends up with gout) and I have met one eccentric who still tickles his throat with a peacock feather after each meal.
Christmas comes but once a year but remember, if you can, there is Easter to look forward to with a young roast lamb and new potatoes. Later on there will be summer too with strawberries and raspberries swimming in cream and showered in sugar. So take it easY and savour your feasts this Christmas with the discrimination of a connoisseur rather than devouring them with the desperation of a dodo,
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