Yule Log

MENU

Other pages

Introduction
Advent
Christmas Eve
Santa Clause
Christmas carols
Christmas cards
Christmas Day
Boxing Day
12 Days of Christmas lyrics
12 Days of Chrismas meaning

Christmas food
Christmas pudding / mince pies

Directory entries:
Photo cards
Advent calendars
Puddings recipes
Stockings / stuffers
Artificial Christmas trees

Christmas Food

Christmas has traditionally been the time to eat a great deal of extremely rich food – at least among those who could afford it. Cooks always like to outdo their rivals and as a result it was common to eat very strange concoctions including swans and peacocks that were wrapped in their own skin and feathers once they had been cooked.

Up until Victorian times the main dish in the Christmas meal was a goose and many people would join a "Goose Club" and save through the year to be able to afford their goose at Christmas. In fact a Goose Club features in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle" (written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), but I won’t give away the reason why. And the goose also features at the end of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.
Nowadays a turkey is a more likely offering on Christmas Day.

Yule Log

Nowadays a Yule Log is a cake, usually a chocolate one, covered in thick brown icing textured like bark, with holly leaves and a robin on top.

Originally the Yule Log was a druidic tradition where, over the twelve days of Christmas, a log should be kept burning and then used to light all the fires in the New Year, to bring good luck.