Christmas is coming – but if the geese are getting fat, the turkeys aren’t terribly happy, cooped up indoors on account of avian flu. Around half of the free-range birds produced for Christmas in the UK have been culled or died due to the illness, according to the British Poultry Council – and for those that remain, the government’s anti-infection measures mean they aren’t ranging anything like as freely as before. Some butchers, including the Ginger Pig chain, have announced they aren’t selling turkey at all. So if we can’t get a happy turkey, what should we be eating on Christmas Day?
Turkeys might seem like the stalwarts of the Christmas feast but they are, after all, New World birds, so latecomers to the festive table in these islands. It might seem like a break with tradition to have anything except turkey – the vast creature that Scrooge bore to the Cratchits’ Christmas table – but if you go back in time, there were lots of other options.
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