Lately

London, 2012

England before Christmas is all about the food...planning old fashioned meals, fighting over picturesque tins of tea at Fortnum and Mason, hunting furiously for obscure ingredients (peeled hazelnuts), and sourcing meats at butchers that are older than time.

This obsession with cooking in a very traditional fashion makes things quite festive and funny. People take things like, say, bread sauce, very seriously. Suggest a short cut, and people are really undone.

The good news is we are probably not going to starve.