Saturday, December 26, 2009

Christmas day in London

So I was reading ol' Wilf's diary the other day, and found this little gem from 1840, when he was on a mission in England:

"Christmas day in London... We took our Christmas dinner with Br. Morgan. He had his family at home with him. The dinner consisted of Baked Mutton, Goose, Rabbit Pies, Minced Pies, and Plum Pudding, and bread and cheese, Porter and water. We spent the evening at Mr. Albums in conversing about the things of God..."

This citation is just one example, which may or may not represent a broader cross section of what was common. If we were to use this one example as a representative sample, here's what we might learn:
Wilford (and other early Mormons) indulged in fine food for holiday occasions.
Christmas dinner was an important dinner.
Some Christmas dinners were heavy on the nice meats.
Meat pies figured prominently as main dishes.
Sweets came from the pudding, not the pie.
Starches came from bread, not potatoes.
The Word of Wisdom was not observed: "porter" is a heavy dark beer.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas!

0 comments: