After the Boars Head came all sorts of roast birds - including peacock in royal households but it was goose that became the main Christmas meat for 300 years. Tradition says Elizabeth I was dining on goose at Christmas 1588 when she was told that the remaining ships of the Spanish Armada had been destroyed by storms around the Scottish and Irish coasts. She decreed that the Goose should be the bird served at Christmas.
Turkeys are native to Mexico so was the common bird used in early America and then brought back to this country. George II kept a flock of turkeys in Richmond Park to provide birds for shooting for his guests.
Then in the 1800's improved farming meant turkeys became more available, cheaper for households to afford and once Queen Victoria had turkey for the royal Christmas then it became the staple.
We never raised turkeys on the smallholding but always good sized chickens from day old or off-heat and if we sold all the biggest then I'd cook two smaller birds instead.
ED asked me to get the turkey for Christmas Day as their car was going to be full of everything else needed for the 11 of us and for them for 5 days. It's been defrosting slowly in the fridge. My fridge runs quite cold so it's a good thing I got it out of the freezer in plenty of time.
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Yesterday was nice and bright and I had to go and buy some cream for Christmas Day after finding the long life tub that was in the fridge was way out of date - whoops. Decided I'd like a bunch of flowers for Christmas too so after shopping I had a quick walk around the lake. It was very busy, with some sort of small-dog-group walk going on.
Plenty of ducks
In the afternoon - I don't know if it had been on TV before - probably - as it dates from 2017- but it was new to me......... 'The Man Who Invented Christmas'. A very enjoyable watch for pre-Christmas.
That sounds like a good day, nice to get out for a little walk
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