Dan Snow’s History Hit

Episode: A History of Christmas Food

Date: December 18, 2025
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Food historian Dr. Annie Gray

Overview: The Tastes and Traditions of Christmases Past

In this festive episode, Dan Snow is joined by renowned food historian Annie Gray for a hands-on journey through Christmas culinary history. Together in the kitchen, they cook, taste, and discuss the evolution of classic Christmas fare like wassail and mince pies. The episode blends quirky anecdotes, historical insights, and practical tips, showing how our holiday food rituals are a medley of ancient customs, Victorian invention, and global influences. Annie and Dan’s lively banter makes it both informative and deeply entertaining—a must-listen for anyone curious about the traditions that shape our Christmas tables.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Layered History of Christmas (03:30–05:06)

• Modern Christmas: Victorian Invention + 1950s Influences
  • Most of what we recognize today as Christmas—turkey, trees, presents, and the general “stress”—stems from the Victorians with sprinkles of twentieth-century commercialization.
  • Dan Snow: “From a point of view of getting drunk, eating lots of food and that idea of cosiness and something to look forward to goes back a long way... The turkey, trees, buying presents—that's mainly Victorian.” [04:36]
• The ‘Eternal’ Winter Festival
  • Winter celebrations centered on fire, feasting, and drink existed long before Christianity—pagan, druidic, and ‘whatever you want to call them’ traditions were co-opted by the Church.
  • The impulse: light a huge fire, eat what you can, forget your woes, and survive the short, miserable days.

2. Christmas Food Origins: Global Influences (05:06–06:10)

• American Imports
  • Turkey and potatoes—now seen as Christmas staples—hail from the Americas and only integrated into Christmas meals post-Columbus.
  • Annie Gray: “Many things we associate with Christmas food are actually from the Americas... turkey and potatoes came in after Columbus.” [05:06]
• Turkey Timeline
  • Turkeys appear in Europe in the 1520s–30s, associated with winter feasts, not just Christmas.
  • Only recently (post-1960s) did turkey become the universal Christmas Day bird in Britain.
  • Other festive birds historically included goose, capon, chicken, and even swan.

3. The 12 Days of Christmas: Feasts and Fasts (06:31–07:47)

• Advent Fasting, Christmas Feasting
  • Advent was a period of fast—stockfish for the poor, luxurious “seafood” (including beaver tails and porpoise) for the rich.
  • Feasting began Christmas Day (or Eve), lasting through Epiphany (Jan 6th): 12 days of abundance.
  • Dan Snow: “Advent was a period of fast... once you get to Christmas itself, the fasting period is over. Wahey! Meat feast. So you’ve got 12 days of feasting.” [06:35]
• Class Divide in Feasting
  • Only the wealthy could afford lavish feasts throughout all twelve days.

4. Wassail: “Christmas in a Cup” (07:49–16:13)

What Is Wassail?

• “A lot of things to a lot of people”—a communal winter punch with ancient roots.
  • Links to Anglo-Saxon customs: “drink hail”—“wassail” call and response.
  • Served hot, receipes varied: apples, brandy, port, beer, cider—whatever was on hand.
  • Rituals for fertility (especially orchards) in certain regions (e.g., Somerset).

Cooking Victorian Wassail (08:38–15:55)

• Recipe Breakdown:
  • Roast apples (stuffed with butter and brown sugar).
  • Prepare an alcoholic base: German hock (white wine of the era), water, cloves, ginger, mace, cinnamon, cardamom, and lots of sugar.
  • Thicken with egg yolks for a “custardy” texture.
  • Pour spiced liquid over apples in a communal bowl; everyone dishes out an apple and plenty of custard.
  • Annie Gray: “This is essentially Victorian health food... protein from the egg, spices for your health, alcohol to kill anything nasty, and the apple—one of your five a day.” [14:20]
  • The process, with mishaps (broken spoons, makeshift kitchen tools), is playful:
    • Annie Gray: “Just broken the wooden spoon. I was given that wooden spoon by my team at History Hit for having the worst performing social media post in the whole of the year.” [10:17]
    • Dan Snow: “Well, I suppose now you’ve got the worst performing wooden spoon.” [10:27]

Tasting & Toasting

• Notable Moment/Quote:
  • Dan Snow: “By the time you’ve drunk it, you won’t care anymore!” [13:26]
  • Annie Gray: “Ah, it’s Christmas in a cup. Feel ready to go.” [15:59]

5. The Mince Pie: A Savory-Sweet Evolution (19:20–34:13)

From Meat Pie to Treat

• Mincemeat Origins:
  • First mince pies (Tudor/Medieval) were a third beef/mutton, a third suet, a third dried fruit—plus sugar (then used as a spice).
  • Early pies blurred lines between sweet and savory—a mark of luxury and ostentatious feasting.
  • Over time, the meat content dwindled (a little meat in 19th-century pies, then usually just suet today).
  • Dan Snow: “Early mincemeats were indeed minced meat—meat, suet, dried fruit... sugar was a spice.” [20:12]

Victorian Recipe Cook-Along

• Annie & Dan cook Eliza Acton’s 1845 “meat meat” mincemeat:
  • Minced roast beef
  • Suet (“the hard fat around the kidneys of a mammal”)
  • Currants, raisins, candied peel, lemon zest
  • Sugar, salt, nutmeg, ginger, sherry, brandy
  • All encased in buttery puff pastry
• Class Differences:
  • The recipe is solidly middle-class (Eliza Acton was the “real” Mrs. Beeton). The working class would likely buy pies, not make them (no home oven).
  • Annie Gray: “No point making mincemeat just for a few people… this is just one among many dishes on the table that would have screamed wealth.” [24:15]

Notable Quotes/Moments

• Oliver Cromwell and the “War on Christmas” (22:02–23:58):

  • Dan Snow: “No, they didn’t ban Christmas. They did legislate against what they saw as its excesses… Christmas had become associated with rioting, football, the working classes getting drunk, having sex with loads of different people.” [22:15]
  • “Christmas was cancelled” became cultural shorthand, but actual bans and crackdowns were more nuanced—class and religion were at the heart of it.
  • “Culture wars.” [23:58]

• Dramatic Boar’s Head Feasts (25:23–26:47):

  • Preparation was epic—sometimes required importing boar from Germany if you were Queen Victoria.
  • Annie describes the lengthy multi-week process for making an authentic boar’s head centerpiece—a symbol of ostentation in festive dining.

Baking & Tasting

• Playful moments as Annie and Dan assemble the pies. Dan admits to over-stuffing.
• First Bite Reactions:
  • Annie Gray: “Oh, that’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten in my life. It’s not—the texture is great, isn’t it?” [33:56]
  • Dan Snow: “Meaty minced meat has got depth of flavor, texture, complexity. It’s just... a different ball game.” [34:13]
  • Discussion on how modern mince pies are a shadow of their complex, meaty ancestors.

6. Victorian Christmas: Reinvention and Nostalgia (29:17–31:33)

• Restoring Christmas:
  • The Industrial Revolution, urbanization, and nostalgia led Victorians to ‘restore’ Christmas as a season of hospitality, charity, and overt celebration.
  • Dickens and Prince Albert are often credited, but many others helped revive the traditions (Albert “imported” trees, but Christmas trees predated him in the UK; Dickens gets “less credit than he deserves”).
  • Annie Gray: “Today, we think of Dickens and Albert as having single-handedly invented Christmas because those are the iconic figures... It’s just not true.” [30:14]
  • Even Victorians thought “real” Christmas had been even earlier—Tudor nostalgia!

7. Reflections and What We Should (and Shouldn’t) Bring Back (34:30–35:40)

• Dan’s Wish-List for Christmas Revival:
  • Restore the 12 days of Christmas, culminating in a “Twelfth Cake” (not Christmas cake, which “peters out with a whimper”).
  • More variety—ditch the turkey-and-brussels default, enjoy mince pies all season, experiment with flavors, and embrace diversity of food.
  • Dan Snow: "Christmas should be what we want it to be and not what we’re told it should be. Get rid of the shoulds. Have only what we want.” [35:35]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If we really liked turkey, wouldn’t we eat it on more than just the 25th of December?”
  —Dan Snow, reflecting on food habits [32:56]

• “Eat mince pies throughout the whole season and have 15 different types of mincemeat and drink wassail and... have loads of different types of food on the table.”
  —Dan Snow [35:35]

• Annie, you have changed my Christmas from this day forward. Like, you’re like the ghosts of Christmas past, present, future. You’ve reintroduced me to wassail, to these proper mince pies.”
  —Dan Snow, after tasting [34:30]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:30: The true origins of Christmas—tradition vs. Victorian invention
• 05:06: Turkey and potatoes: American imports & food seasonality
• 06:31: Advent fasts, Christmas feasts, and 12 days of indulgence
• 07:49–16:13: Cooking, history, and tasting of wassail
• 19:20–34:13: Mince pie history, class, and live cooking/tasting session
• 22:02: Cromwell and the “banning” of Christmas—myth and reality
• 25:23: The lost art of the boar’s head feast
• 29:17: Victorian reinvention of Christmas—Dickens, nostalgia, and more
• 34:30–35:40: Food traditions to revive, and a call for variety and personal meaning

Conclusion

This episode paints a vivid, fascinating portrait of Christmas culinary history, reminding listeners that today’s traditions are built on centuries of adaptability, class tensions, and delicious experimentation. Annie Gray’s enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge, paired with Dan’s wit and curiosity, make the story of wassail and mince pies as appealing as the foods themselves. Their key takeaway: ditch the culinary “shoulds” and embrace a Christmas full of variety, tradition, and above all, enjoyment.

Book plug:

• Annie Gray, At Christmas We Feast—for more on festive food history and recipes. [35:44]

(Summary skips all advertisements, sponsors, and non-content segments as requested.)