A cure for Christmas: the pleasure (and perils) of preserves

My family knows that once the flaming pudding is on the table, late on Christmas Day, all meals will be picnics. Bar a few potatoes flung into the oven to bake, all cooking stops and eating becomes a forage into a squirrelled hoard of treats: the jars, tins, balsawood boxes and less pretty but functional vacpacs, inside which lie the delicate results of ‘cures’ achieved using sugar, salt, booze or smoke.

Preserves are as much a part of my Christmas as the big fat bird and Brussels sprouts, only I find them far more interesting. Often they are memories of past Christmases. We recall the specialities our forebears once loved; the image of an elderly relative eating plums in brandy while watching the telly. My grandmother, for example, felt Christmas was not Christmas without sticky Elvas plums from Fortnums; her Russian émigré husband lusted (not always successfully) after caviar.

My mother never did Christmas without buying a whole gammon then taking ages in the run-up to soak, boil and glaze it with mustard, cloves and demerara sugar.