CHRISTMAS FARE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 24 December 1925, Page 13

CHRISTMAS FARE.

EVOLUTION OF THE CAKE. “Christmas is coming, Tho ducks arc getting fat.” Ancl every housewife is commencing to think of her puddings, pies, and cakes. Old, trusted' recipes are consulted once again, and new ones arc sometimes tried as an experiment. Few housewives know that Christmas cakes are tho survival of a Pagan rite, as are most of the foods dedicated to certain festivals. The custom of having cake 3at Christmas goes back to early days, when Yule tide was celebrated at the time we now call Christmas, and Yule cakes were given as oflerings between friends. Yule moans wheel. It is the turn of a wheel when the Sun God turns' his chariot for a now • circle of the heavens. 'these cakes were of a yellow colour obtained by using saffron which corresponded with the golden hue of the sun. The cake in Tudor times was the size of a small bun, in Pagan times it was a wafer. Plenty of yolks of eggs and colouring from the crocus flowers helped to make the cake a bright golden colour. The Jews had an old custom of offering little unleavened cakes which were tokens of goodwill and peace at any festival. The Christmas cake of to-day is the two bid customs combined—tho Yule wafer and the Jewish cakes. The French “Gateau Noel” is a, luck symbol. A piece kept for a year is supposed to ward off evil spirits. The cake keeps quite well and never becomes mouldy because of the rich mixture and the .cognac used in its making. In the little city of Siena, the cake that betokens Christmas is called “panaforte,” and is a flat cake about tho size of a plate, and half an inch thick wrapped in silver paper. The Italian King sends this cake as a offering to other courts. In the time of the Tudors and the Stuarts, in wo a 1 thy homes the cakes were compounded in heaps in the stillrooms, and huge baskets of them stood in the halls on Yulo morning to be given away. Christmas cakes have gone on in favour until they have become the elaborate and rich confections of to-day. Anyone who has eaten a “Scotch bun” from Buzzard’s, knows it is the descendant of Gateau do Noel introduced, like many other things, to dour Scotland by Mary Queen of Scots.