A History of Christmas Food
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Porpoises, beaver tails, boar's head and puffins were just some of the exquisite dishes on medieval tables during the festive season. In this episode, food historian Annie Gray joins Dan in his kitchen to cook up some delicious Christmas fare from ages past. They make wassail - an ancient alcoholic punch - and mince meat pies as they talk about the Pagan rituals, Medieval feasts and Victorian traditions that dictate what we put on our Christmas dinner tables.
Did you know you can watch this episode on YouTube? Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast
Annie's book is called 'At Christmas We Feast'
Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good tidings. Good tidings. History hit listeners. Now, before we go any further, I need to let you know that you can watch this episode on YouTube. It's very modern. It's very exciting. You can watch me and the food historian Annie Gray making chuda mince pies and wasail punch in my kitchen as we talk about Christmas food through the ages. |
| 0:21.9 | And you, importantly, you can learn how to make them yourself. It is a truly festive feast |
| 0:26.6 | for the eyes as well as it is. I've actually used these in real life. These have improved and |
| 0:31.6 | enriched and deletionised at my family Christmases, so I hope they're useful for you. If you want to watch this, please check out the link in the show notes. |
| 0:39.7 | Otherwise, proceed without doing anything. |
| 0:42.6 | And you're about to listen to this classic Christmas episode from our archive. |
| 0:46.8 | Enjoy! |
| 0:51.3 | Hi everyone, welcome Down Snow's History. |
| 0:52.3 | I am standing in a kitchen next to food historian legend Annie Gray. |
| 0:57.5 | Hello. And today, because it's Christmas, we are cooking the most amazing midwinter fair, |
| 1:03.8 | Wasail, which is a beautiful alcoholic punch and proper minced pies. And he's going to take us through |
| 1:10.2 | those dishes, tell us how to make |
| 1:11.5 | them. Tell us all about Christmas's past and how we ended up with the Christmas we have today. |
| 1:17.3 | Enjoy. |
| 1:25.0 | Annie, great, great to have you back on the show. Great to be back. Is Christmas one of those things |
| 1:29.3 | that feels eternal, but like most other traditions, just basically made up by the Victorians? |
| 1:34.2 | Yes and no. I would say most of the modern Christmas certainly was made up by the Victorians, |
| 1:39.9 | with a kind of sprinkling of 1950s as well. The idea of Christmas goes back a lot further. So |
| 1:45.0 | we look out the window here today and it's absolutely beautiful. It's a glorious, sunshiny day. |
| 1:50.0 | It's freezing though. But the most normal thing in the British winter is pretty manky, |
| 1:55.0 | pretty rainy, pretty miserable. If you're back in the medieval period or before then and you're |
| 2:00.0 | a rural farmer, it's got the additional glory of mud. |
... |
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