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Today's program isn't an exercise in early Christmas panic.

There's too much of that already, the leaves still on the trees

while Christmas glitter invades the shops.

We're concentrating on what you might enjoy preparing now

before the season's pressure begins and panic takes the edge of food pleasures. And showing us the way is one of our best

cookery writers. She's interested in foods linked to Christ's long past, Christmases before we all lapped up Albert and Victoria's German traditions.

Before fir trees, crackers, turkey and cards, Christmas was a more modest affair, but a celebration where for centuries

we relish fruit and spices from the East. We love dates, figs, pomegranates, and exotic sweetmeats such as Turkish delight.

Now, if you think all we've left of that time are those long paper-covered

boxes of sticky dates on plastic twigs, let me introduce you to Diana Henry, cookery writer at the Sunday Telegraph, whose eighth book, A Change of Appetide, was published

this year. She's always been fascinated by the way East meets North in our Christmas kitchens.

So we dropped in on her kitchen as she showed her friend,

...