Divas and Christmas Preparations

This month I’m reclaiming early Christmas preparations from associations with rampant commercialism. And after viewing a recent opera performance, I explain why I don’t believe that teamwork always produces the best results in creative works. We need divas! Finally, as part of the seasonal preparations, I am sharing the recipe for my mother’s much-demanded mincemeat.

But first, a personal note

This blog is, frankly, a personal indulgence. I don’t think I have too many of those, especially now that Beech’s Chocolates has closed and The Brothers has finished on Talking Pictures TV. In last month’s article I talked about discursive thinking, and I don’t seem to be able to write an article without juxtaposing at least two topics. This makes the posts difficult to categorise, difficult to optimise, difficult to fit in groups and as a result, difficult for readers to find.

But I’ve decided I don’t care. I bend to all these requirements in all my other work, but this is the space where I put my own preferences above the demands of algorithms. Emily Tellwright’s blog is never going to be a commercial venture.

Readers are valuable

Writing these articles is valuable to me, because it keeps me writing during periods when I am focussed on the art or publishing sides of Castle Sefton Press. But it also gives me an outlet for ideas that would otherwise create a backlog in my head and make creating new fiction more difficult.

It also matters very much that someone is reading them! I don’t expect ever to have a large following here, but I do need an audience to receive and react to my output. So thank you to everyone who takes the time to read what I write. Comments are very much appreciated too.

And if you do know someone who’s sufficiently eccentric that they might enjoy my content, then please send them a link to an article you think will interest them. There are share buttons at the bottom of every post, and the grey one that looks like an armoured paper-clip will open an email with a link to the post.

Early Preparations for Christmas

A love of the festive season

I love Christmas, and there doesn’t seem to be any amount of grief, cynicism, poverty or age that is going to make a difference to that. I’ve written before about the things you carry through being the ones that really matter to you, and a deep connection to the Christmas season is one of mine.

Interestingly, hardly any of my friends or family share this feeling. Many of them are not keen, and even the most positive are merely prepared to go through with it because it’s happening and only enjoy it if it goes particularly well. Every year I beaver away cooking, decorating the house and preparing gifts knowing that I’m mostly doing it for myself. Because it’s something that I want to do.

It’s not that I feel I have to do it. I know that many people feel that pressure, but I have had years where I haven’t celebrated at all. It’s freeing to know that you can do that, and reinforces my knowledge that the only reason I engage in the annual rituals is from choice.

Deep roots

There’s no doubt that I owe some of this to my mother. She was in her element at Christmas, being talented at decoration and cooking and being a great lover of home. She also had an ability to generate a feeling of magic, and nothing makes things memorable for a child more than that.

Some comes from me. As the events of Ghost Train develop, Clyde finds in himself a great love of home, a deep connection to the seasons and a perennial innocence, all of which make Christmas attractive to him. Although Clyde and I are mostly not very alike, these are things we do have in common.

And then there is history. In the darkest days of December, I feel the influence of all the souls who have come before. Everyone who has saved and scraped and planned and worked to give themselves and those closest to them some warmth, cheer, joy and indulgence at this time. However opulent and extended or meagre and brief. I’m never truly alone in my celebrations.

For those who don’t enjoy it

Those who come from cultures that don’t celebrate Christmas seem, in my experience, better able to ignore it. It is those who feel bound up in the occasion, but find it stressful, difficult or even repellant, who suffer the most. It is hard to escape reminders of what is coming on mainstream media, in the shops, and even at work for at least two months beforehand.

I don’t expect everyone to be like me. To those who don’t enjoy it and have a choice, I say feel free not to engage with the occasion. To all those who cannot choose and find it an unhappy time, I can only send my heartfelt wishes for better circumstances for you.

Either way

What I do notice is that all sides complain about Christmas preparations starting too early. The haters moan because they have to suffer reminders of an ordeal to come for longer, and the lovers moan that the special nature of the celebration is being ruined by commercialisation and overextension.

Reclaiming the seasons

Whether you enjoy the festive season or not, I urge you to stop regarding early preparations for Christmas as something negative. Do complain about rampant commercialism, waste, over-production and blatant profiteering. They may be more in evidence at this time of year, but they are always happening.

The big retailers do plan for Christmas of course, but it’s only an expansion of the type of planning and exploitation that they are always engaged in. The people to whom planning early for Christmas is most important are those doing all the real and vital work which makes the true festive season.

Farmers and growers

Were your parsnips and Brussels sprouts sown at the beginning of December? Of course not. Be thankful that those who provide your fresh food at Christmas started planning a long time ago. Growing crops and keeping animals in the British winter are challenging and hard work. Just a few hundred years ago there would have been hardly any fresh food at all at this time of year.

Thanks to the planning of farmers and growers, even if you are not celebrating at least you have something to eat in December.

Art and craft

When you visit the Christmas makers’ market or local art and craft stalls just before Christmas, have they magically produced their wares in the last few days? Of course not. Handmade things take time to make, and they will have been gradually building up stock through months of painstaking work.

Tiny zero-waste businesses

If you want to buy a book or an art print for a gift at the last minute, you will have to buy a mass produced one from a big retailer that has access to huge stocks. The stock that is unsold will be wasted, or in the case of books, destroyed.

Tiny independent businesses like ours that print your books and art to order need time to make your products. And with the extra demand at Christmas, both on the printers and delivery services, that time can be longer than usual.

By last-minute shopping, you are supporting the big commercial entities that you might have been railing against.

Harvest Time

I first think of Christmas every year in September. This happens quite naturally, because it is harvest season, when most vegetables and the autumn fruits are ready. These get made into preserves to give as Christmas gifts. I also start making Christmas foods such as mincemeat at this time, as they need time to mature to taste their best.

I often make other gifts too. This takes time and preparation, such as looking through my knitting wool and patterns, as well as making the items. Every year I do a special artwork for Christmas cards to be sent to friends and family, which will go into the shop the following year.

These seasonal preparations weave through the autumn season as part of its character. They gently build excitement towards the solstice celebration. When better to have our biggest and most extravagant festivities than in the shortest days of deepest darkness? And Christmas is the closest thing we have to a universal holiday now in Britain, which adds to its special feeling.

Realism

Don’t engage with any of this if you don’t want to. But whatever you decide, please don’t make the mistake of thinking that because your supermarket has a Santa-shaped shell of vegetable fat and sugar with a pinch of cocoa on its shelves in October that any evidence of Christmas before December is a destructive consequence of modern capitalism.

Things of real value and quality made, or grown, by humans almost always take time. By remembering that, you will be moving away from the commercial exploitation that so disgusts you.

A Night at the Opera

Recently I was able to go the Royal Opera House’s live screening of Tosca at a local theatre. As with Christmas, I seem to be in a minority among my friends in liking this opera. They point out to me, with justification, that the balance between drama and lyricism in Puccini’s music is over-skewed towards the dramatic in this work. And perhaps they find it too violent.

It’s not my favourite opera, but I do love it. I like drama, I rather empathise with Tosca herself, and E lucevan le stelle is musical genius. I didn’t enjoy this production, however, and when I was forced to go home at the second interval because I could no longer bear the overloud volume that was making the music inaudible, I didn’t feel it was a great loss.

Anna Netrebko was in great voice, and was on fire in the first act. It’s a great role for her. But it was impossible to stand hearing her rendition of Vissa D’arte blasted out like heavy metal with all the top notes reverberating. Sadly it means I won’t be going to any more live-streamed operas.

It’s all in the score

I am a great admirer of Sir Antonio Pappano, who I think is one of the most talented musicians we have ever had in the UK. He was musical director of the Royal Opera House until last year, and I was expecting that I might not like the approach of the new director as much. I felt they were bound to have appointed someone of a contrasting style.

Pappano probably understands as much about Puccini’s music as anyone except Puccini himself. With him, the interpretation always begins with the score and he finds the complete meaning of the work within the music. If half a century (almost) of being a very average musician has taught me anything it is that this is always the case with great composers. Historical, biographical, traditional and technical knowledge can all help you to read the score, but everything you need to fully realise the music is in there.

Non-narrative expression

The production of Tosca that I saw last week took very much the opposite approach of developing a narrative around the opera and forcing the music to fit it. It’s fine for people to do that and for audiences to enjoy it of course – I am giving an opinion not a criticism – but to me it’s nonsense.

Nowadays everyone seems obsessed with stories or narratives. Music and visual art that should stand alone as forms of communication in their own right have to be described and explained for us to enjoy them, apparently.

The greatest thing about classical music for me is that it is a non-narrative form of expression. It conveys so much more than words can. That’s how it can be so unbearably, intensely emotive. Listen to the music. You don’t need words to tell you what it means. I love words, but don’t expect of them something they can never achieve.

In Defence of Divas

The other key to Tosca is the personality of Tosca herself. She is a blend of passion, innocence, religion, professional confidence, personal insecurity and ultimately, strength. It is the reaction between her nature and the historical circumstances that drives the plot.

This means that for the show to work, the character of Tosca has to dominate. It has to be the thing you are most bound up in, or you’re just watching another story of the miseries of war and abuse. And for that you need the singer playing Tosca to have a huge personality as well as a great voice. You need, in fact, a diva.

I’ve seen Anna Netrebko in many roles, particularly live from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, and she can project a dominant persona even if she’s not one of the greatest prima donnas. It became clear from the interval interview with the director that his approach had toned that down.

Difficult

I wish I could remember where I saw an interview recently with a Hollywood film director talking about ‘difficult’ stars. (If anyone recognises what I’m talking about, let me know in the comments). He was saying that he never expected the great Hollywood stars to behave in an ordinary fashion off-screen. He didn’t think that was ‘difficult’ of them because they were exceptional people who could walk out and put down a unique and powerful performance that would communicate with millions of people for years to come. (I’m not condoning abusive behaviour. Nothing excuses that.)

The performing arts need these big diva personalities with the ability to project themselves. Opera needs them. Tosca certainly needs them.

Teamwork

There was a great emphasis on teamwork in this current production of Tosca, and I think that may be responsible for the dumbing-down of Anna Netrebko’s performance. Of course, everyone involved in a production is important to its success. But teamwork is not some kind of cultural communism where the back-desk viola players and the wardrobe supervisor have equal weight to the musical director and the lead singers in the performance of an opera.

In the recording of E lucevan le stelle that I shared above, Pavarotti adds a few additional beats here and there. You can feel the conductor and every member of the orchestra hanging on those extra-long notes, waiting to catch him when he moves off. That’s teamwork, without attempting to tame Pavarotti’s divo quality (not that anyone could, I’m sure!). As Cavaradossi’s heart is breaking with the tragedy of his life, so is Pavarotti’s and, such is his power as a performer, so will ours every time we hear it.

My Mother’s Mincemeat

I’ve been talking about early preparations for Christmas. Most traditional English Christmas food such as mincemeat and fruit cake is quite simple, but to taste their best they just require the right combination of good-quality ingredients and time. Mincemeat requires cooking (sour) apples, and I always make mine as soon as they are available. If you have any left after Christmas, it will taste even better, topped up with a little brandy, next year.

Texture

I think texture is very important in mincemeat, so follow the instructions for chopping the ingredients carefully. You don’t want to end up with something sloppy – you can buy that in the supermarkets! If you take the time to get this part of the preparation right, you will have mincemeat that still has some bite twelve months from now.

Walnuts rather than almonds are key to the texture too. Almonds are quite hard and are excellent in Christmas cakes and puddings. Walnuts have a contrasting combination of softness and crunchiness that is perfect for mincemeat, and the bitter edge blends with that of the spices and the treacly sugar.

Finally, try to get some whole candied peel. It will elevate the flavour all your Christmas baking and fruit cakes from now on. And it adds yet another layer of texture to your mincemeat. I don’t know what they do to the ready-chopped stuff that’s widely available, but it never tastes anything like the real thing.

Suet

I’ve noticed that there are recipes popping up now for mincemeat without suet. Some use butter instead. You can’t make mincemeat without suet. The texture and flavour are all wrong.

Traditionally, mincemeat was made with raw beef suet put through a tabletop mincer. This was a remnant of the old English recipes that combined minced meat with dried fruit and spices in the way that some middle eastern cooking still does. If you can get good quality beef suet, and are happy to do this, it will give you a strong-flavoured, old-fashioned mincemeat. But you will need to make sure the mincemeat is always thoroughly cooked before you eat it – no pinching a spoonful from the jar!

You can use a packet beef suet of course, but these days I use vegan suet so that everyone can eat my mince pies. You can buy this in any supermarket but it does generally contain palm oil, the production of which can be environmentally harmful. Suma in the UK produce a vegan suet that uses sustainably produced palm oil, and you can buy it online or in many independent health food shops.

Spices

This is very much my mother’s recipe – I have mentioned her great talent for celebrating Christmas at home – but I do have an addition of my own. That is the spice mix. I add half of the spice amount from a good quality commercial mixed spice blend and half from my homemade Garam Masala.

Garam Masala means, I believe, ‘hot spices’, because it contains the spices that are thought to heat the body in Ayurveda. By the time you have added this alchemical blend to your rum-soaked mincemeat, it will leave you feeling like this:

I use the recipe for Garam Masala from Madhur Jaffrey’s New World Vegetarian: 1 tablespoon cardamom seeds, 1 teaspoon cloves, 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1 teaspoon black cumin seeds, a 2in cinnamon stick, half a nutmeg and a curl of mace all whizzed up in a grinder.

My Mother’s Mincemeat

This is the ultimate rich, chewy, warming traditional Christmas mincemeat for your pies.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients Equipment Method

Ingredients

  

• 8 oz currants
• 8 oz raisins
• 8 oz sultanas
• 8 oz cooking apples . Use firm, sour apples
• 2 oz candied lemon peel
• 2 oz candied orange peel
• 8 oz suet , beef or vegan
• 4 oz walnuts
• 1 lb soft dark brown sugar . Use the darkest sugar you can get
• 2 tsp mixed spice – see the recipe intro
• 1 lemon , grated rind and juice
• dark rum , a few tablespoons.

Equipment

• 1 very large bowl (I use my jam kettle)
• 1 sharp knife
• 1 chopping board (not one used for onions or garlic please!)
• 1 scales
• 1 vegetable peeler
• 1 food processor (or a traditional mincer)
• 4 large sterilised jam jars or other jars of equivalent capacity

Method

 

1. Add the suet, sugar, currants and spice to your bowl
   8 oz suet, 1 lb soft dark brown sugar, 2 tsp mixed spice, 8 oz currants
2. Put the raisins and sultanas into the food processor and pulse until they are lightly chopped. Don’t let them turn into mush! Then add them to the bowl.
   8 oz raisins, 8 oz sultanas
3. Lightly chop the walnuts by hand. Walnuts are soft and this is easy. Aim for a variety of sizes of piece, with the largest being about the size of a pea. Add the nut pieces of all sizes to your bowl.
   4 oz walnuts
   
4. Slice the lemon and orange candied peels by hand. Cut each piece into thin strips about 1/4″ or 60mm wide. Then cut each strip into squares. There’s no need to be too precise about the size as some variation helps the texture. Add the pieces to your bowl.
   2 oz candied lemon peel, 2 oz candied orange peel
   
5. Peel the apples and cut them by hand into cubes that are about the same size as the peel or a little larger. Add these to the bowl.
   8 oz cooking apples
6. Grate the lemon rind into the bowl and add the squeezed lemon juice. With clean hands and jewellery removed, put your hands into the bowl and give everything a good mix.
   1 lemon
7. Add three tablespoons of the rum and mix with your hands again. If the mixture feels a bit dry, add another tablespoon.
   dark rum
8. Cover the bowl with a plate or a clean teacloth and leave it to stand for 24-48 hours.
   
9. After the resting period, uncover the bowl and with clean hands give the mixture another mix. If it is thoroughly moist right through it is ready to pack into sterilised jars. If not, add a drop more rum and mix again before putting into jars. Don’t add too much rum. You don’t want liquid lying at the bottom of the bowl. You can always add a drop more alcohol later if the mincemeat seems a bit dry.
   
10. Store your mincemeat in a cool dark place until you want to use it. The longer you can leave it, the better it will taste. When you are ready to use it, turn the whole jar out into a clean bowl and give it a good stir. Add a little brandy if it is at all dry. Return it to the jar before taking out what you need for your recipe.

Notes

Don’t be tempted to chop the nuts, peel and apples in the food processor. The result will be a very mushy mincemeat. Put the radio or an audiobook on, and take the time to enjoy a bit of therapeutic knife-work!