The Christmas Chronicles: Notes, Stories and 100 Essential Recipes for Midwinter by Nigel Slater

The Christmas Chronicles: Notes, Stories and 100 Essential Recipes for Midwinter Reviews

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  Bam cooks the books ;-)

  ***Began my annual rereading of this Christmas journal on November 4, 2020--third time around. Delightful!***
  
  **I've begun a re-reading of this splendid book which is an ode to winter. I had promised myself I would begin reading on November 1st, where Nigel begins, but I'm a few days late. Winter, however, has begun early around here, with snow on Halloween and an Arctic blast that began on November 11th and is just beginning to loosen its icy grip after three days. Perhaps Nigel can help me to appreciate winter just a little bit more, as I hunker down with an afghan and a mug of hot cider and read about his love affair with winter.**
  
  I would highly recommend this compendium of recipes and thoughts about the winter season which reads like a personal journal. I don't know if I'll ever make any of his recipes since I'd have to convert them from grams and milliliters but I can drool and dream.
  
  His description of Nuremberg Lebkuchen and the Nurnberger Christkindlesmarkt especially delighted me and led me to seek out a local Christkindl market this December where I was thrilled to find some imported chocolate-covered gingerbread. Outstanding! Then there's his description of panettone, which he titles 'a love story' and describes as 'a fairy cake made by angels.' I definitely agree!
  
  But it's not all about food. There's descriptions of evergreen trees for instance; memories of Christmases past, and family traditions. It often reads like a memoir.
  
  This is a beautifully-written book that I'm sure will become a tradition for me to read each year starting in November. I can't think of a more delightful way to spend the winter season.
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  Diane Barnes

  Nigel Slater is a true food writer, as he prefers to be called, rather than chef or TV personality. I haven't seen his show or eaten his food, but I can attest to the food writer label. He writes about food and it's preparation sensuously and lovingly, in addition to traveling, gardening and decorating his home. In this one he also includes food facts and holiday myths and traditions. Not to mention the photographs! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this slowly and savoring his words, and would like to read the autobiography of his childhood, "Toast".
  
  Having said that, I doubt I'll make any of the recipes included here. Some of them are a bit complicated and time consuming, and all measurements are in metric. I'm too lazy to look up conversion charts, and simplicity is my byword these days. But they were lovely to contemplate just the same.
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  Kerri

  Such a beautiful book. I read it over the course of a few months, taking my time with each page. It's a winter book but I began it when New Zealand was experiencing some very hot weather, and though this made the recipes themselves unsuitable, the words and images offered a lovely respite from the heat. It was nice to imagine eating hearty winter meals, tucked away inside away from the cold!⛄❄
  
  I first discovered Nigel Slater through his autobiography, Toast, which I picked up on a whim and thoroughly enjoyed. I have since read more of his work online and watched a few of his TV specials and find myself very drawn to him. I am not very interested in food, but the way he talks/writes about it fits well with me and my approach to things.
  
  This is actually the first cookbook (or perhaps more accurately, book about food) that I have read by him. I saw it in store a week or so after Christmas 2018 and instantly wanted it. But, due to my previously mentioned lack of general interest in food, I decided not to buy it. That seemed a reasonable decision. Besides, Christmas was finally over, I didn't need a book that centered around a time of year that I'm rather neutral towards.
  It was a week before I got back into town, and I'm barely exaggerating when I say I spent that entire week thinking about this book. Of course it wasn't my only thought, but something in me was adamant that I should read this book.
  As soon as I had the opportunity I rushed back to buy the book - there were thankfully a few copies left amongst the general dissarry of books (I felt the shopkeepers were just piling things where ever there was space. Organisation didn't really return until well after the New Year. I think with the endless sales they just gave up!)
  
  One of the things I like best about this book is that it isn't just recipes listed. There are stories, fascinating insights into Christmas traditions and where the originated from. Why we eat this dessert at this particular time. I learned so much. And the book itself is gorgeous. The paper is thick, the gold on the cover catches the light prettily, the photos inside are wonderful, it has a built in bookmark (something I always appreciate). This is a lovely book to read and use, and would also be a very nice gift option for a lot of people. I've loved reading it, and shall miss dipping into it each day. 🍰
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  Cindy Rollins

  I knew nothing about Nigel Slater before buying this highly recommended and expensive book. The reason I decided to bite the bullet is that I love Christmas books and recipes and my season of life was evolving and I needed something new. I began this book in November of 2018 and read it bit by bit through the 2018 Christmas season putting it away before finishing it. When I brought out the 2019 Christmas stuff I dove right into this book where I had left off and thoroughly looked forward to reading a little bit of it each morning. I have yet to try even one of the recipes but if you want to learn how to have a healthy attitude towards food and feasting then this book is pure gold. I loved Nigel's attitude towards life and celebration and ordinary days too. Maybe this book is not for everyone but if you are a raging anglophile then it is not to be missed. It is like a daily dose of Dickensian joy during the season.
  
  Also this book is beautiful.
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  Andrew

  I have always enjoyed the books of Nigel Slater - he open admits he is a food writer rather than a chef turning his had to writing, this is most evident in his other books (such as Toast). This I think gives it a more personal touch, when he comments about a recipe or a particular ingredient you know he is speaking from personal experience (and not just the feedback from his restaurants clientele or who he was copied it off).
  
  So what of this book - well over the 400 plus pages there are only 100 recipes which does not sound much but interspersed with these you have his musings and thoughts on the winter season. Now I will stress this includes November (he does early on explain that different countries, religions and even professions declare winter on different days) so you have a lot of November traditions included as well so for us Brits that Bonfire night.
  
  The book itself is semi autobiography, part seasonal musing and yes part cook book. The result for me at least is a festive and very nostalgic look at the season - if you were not living it (as we are at the time of me thing this up) you could almost imagine the frost on the window panes or the feeling on your face as the crisp winter air hits it for the first time as you step outside. As compared to now when you can go an entire winter with no snow and the temperature is so high that you have to keep mowing the lawn.
  
  Yes this book does feel a bit like a nostalgic (and sometimes sad) look back at the good old days and yes I am old enough to feel that but i think also there are inspirations and ideas for making new traditions and memories for the future - and I for one love this message of hope.
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  Sophie Crane

  Love, love, love this book. It can't be classified as a recipe book; it's a history of winter traditions and facts, with interesting insights and memories from the author. Recipes are interspersed throughout in conjunction with an event or tradition, so that there's no disturbance to the flow of writing. I just couldn't put the book down and, having finished it, went back to the beginning and started to read it again. The book is the essence of winter and Christmas, with lots of interesting and unusual facts (I didn't know before reading it that tinsel's made in Wales!). My house will be filled with candles and branches this winter. If you are looking for something to revive the excitement of Christmas, this book is it.
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  Julie Durnell

  I read and savored this delightful book for almost a year, it just isn't one to skim through. While most of the recipes were for the experienced cook, they were memorable and worthy for the winter months. A beautifully photographed and sumptuously written book!
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  Rebecca

  Two quotes that felt apt this year, as every year:
  
  “As the vast, domed pudding is spooned into bowls and the brandy butter is passed around, the cry of ‘Oh, none for me, thank you’ must be one of the most depressing sounds of the season.” What is Christmas if not a time for indulgence?!
  
  “A straight trunk is essential. A wonky tree is the very devil to put up and its lop-sidedness will bug you all Christmas.” My husband has been eyeing up our leaning tree ever since we put it up on Sunday.
  
  This is such a cozy and beautifully put together book. I could only have a quick glance through it as someone else has requested it after me at the library, but it will be one to get hold of secondhand to have around for future holidays. Along with the recipes there is a lot of personal reflection plus snippets of history about Christmas traditions. Quintessentially English and cheering.
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  Emmkay

  Very British, very seasonal, beautiful to look at. I started it before Christmas but felt a bit irritated - I didn’t have time to be seasonal myself and Slater is occasionally snobbish and has tiringly impeccable taste, with his little asides about filling his home with white, gold and silver because red is so ‘loud’ at Christmas, the horror of cheap candles, etc. However, I picked it up again on a snowy Christmas Day, and then it was a nice treat, with his little peevish particularities (no charades and games! Stay away with your storebought greenery!) feeling more like signs of personality. The descriptions of food and landscape and legends slide down nicely when you’re feeling seasonal. I’d like to try some of the recipes, though more fool him for saying he never bothers to make panforte- homemade panforte is both easy and the highlight of every Christmas for me. So that’s my own peevish little aside said. 3.5.
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  Beth Bonini

  When offered a choice of anything in the bookshop last December, I chose this book. Nearly a year rolled around until I did more than skim it, but it has been a delicious guide to this year’s festive season. So far I’ve made nothing other than the Christmas cake, but that was a project for the month and really the perfect way to celebrate this stuffed compendium of winter’s rituals and culinary traditions. It’s a book that combines recipes with a calendar of Nigel Slater’s approach to Christmas, and it mixes childhood memories with historical tradition and even practical tips. The author’s voice is strong, sometimes even sharp, and highly opinionated. As always, his prose is highly readable and saturated with his own personality. You don’t have to cook from it, although no doubt that would be a bonus.
  
  Nigel Slater is a great lover of winter, and Christmas, and I can’t imagine that anyone could read this book without becoming more enthused about the season - even if one’s taste for it has been jaded over the years.
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  Susan

  Such a beautiful book.....
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  Marilee

  I've never read from Nigel Slater's work before but you can bet I'm going to check out all his books now! This book was everything of the best slow living/cottagecore vibes, filled with beautiful descriptions of food and winter!
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  Philippa

  Magnificent - evocative and poetic in true Nigel style. I have never looked forward to winter in my life, and haven’t been excited about Christmas for many years, but now I am!! Can’t wait to try some of his excellent ideas.
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  Sophie

  2021 reread: My annual reread! I loved this, of course. Nigel Slater is my favourite food writer, but this time around the snobbery and derision placed on products, practises and traditions that make these recipes doable for people with lower incomes and less time than a full time celebrity chef has to offer really grated on me. It made it feel exclusionary which is a thing that food, cooking and Christmas should never be in my opinion.
  
  2018: Oh my goodness, this was glorious. Warm, welcoming, sharp, informative and wonderfully Christmassy. Loved every word.
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  Lindsey Preston

  If you want a beautiful lead up to Christmas, during and after then you’ll love Nigel’s Christmas Chronicles.
  He writes so beautifully and evocatively.
  Amazing recipe ideas too.
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  Courtney

  Not completely what I was expecting. I thought it would be a beautiful, cozy read that goes through the meaning of each celebration within the winter holiday season. Instead the writing is more about personal reflections that vary between first and second person & with a hardness/cynicism that always kept me on edge. The writing just isn’t that great from a content, tone, or structure standpoint—I don’t need a reminder about getting hypothermia if I don’t move around in the cold.
  
  There is variance in the writing and some passages are beautiful. The recipes and photographs look good and I will be trying out several recipes this winter.
  
  Despite the name, I wasn’t wanting or expecting the book to be about Christmas, and largely it isn’t. He is in fact “happily atheist” but celebrates “as much as anyone.”
  
  Here is a sample of the writing:
  
  “Christmas is celebrated by Christians and non-Christians alike. It is a cultural event as much as a religious one, and it’s history is confused. Many of the festival’s observances date from pre-Christians times, and those who celebrate it as a purely religious event might be surprised to find how much of the festivities hails from pagan times…Christmas is a vast steaming pudding of Christianity, folklore, paganism, tradition and commerce. Those of us who are part of a tolerant, open-minded and intelligent society can make our Christmas whatever we want it to be.”
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  Diane

  Another wonderful book from Nigel slater that combines stories from his childhood and now and wonderful recipes. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
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  Fiona

  The Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater (published by Fourth Estate,
  "The icy prickle across your face as you walk out into the freezing air. The piercing burn to your sinuses, like wasabi. Your eyes sparkle, your ears tingle. The rush of cold to your head is stimulating, vital, energising.
  
  The arrival of the first snap of cold is invigorating, like jumping into an ice pool after the long sauna of summer. Winter feels like a renewal, at least it does to me. I long for that ice-bright light, skies of pale blue and soft grey light that is at once calm and gentle, fresh and crisp. Away from the stifling airlessness of summer, I once again have more energy. Winter has arrived."
  
  Its all about the cold and crisp months leading up to including Christmas,new Year and into January/February. It is the Winter of my youth.The recipes are divine and I do mean angelic with feet planted firmly in winter.
  For my first read in the New Year it is a cracker.It will remain on my shelf for years as a wonderful cookery book and a homage to the chill loved it
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  Sally

  This book has seen me through the end of 2020 and into the start of 2021. With it’s beautiful photography and recipes running along side Nigel’s observations of the season. I have learnt new things and also learnt the reason for so many traditions regarding Christmas. I read each day on the day it should be read until tonight when I decided to read the last three days in one lovely last session and I’m glad I did because the last day does just end. I will start reading again this November and I know I will enjoy it again but this time it will remind me of things in my own life. Finishing the book on the day I feel slightly better after being poorly. I’m hoping next time I read it and finish it I will be making more memories and feeling thankful to be able too.
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  Caroline

  This is not a feel good Christmas book! Preachy, snobby and out of touch. Writing is excellent and I enjoyed the descriptions of Christmas of other countries but ultimately not that pleasant to read.
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  Jenny

  I've never felt more festive, than when I listened to this audio.
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  Jill Loach

  This beautifully produced book, a pleasure to unwrap and hold, has, since the start of November, seen me through the dark and shortest days of winter, the busy Christmas period and the quiet times which follow. The diary form has controlled and enabled reading time, a few pages at a time always possible, hwever busy the day. Nigel Slater has come a long way since his Wolverhampton boyhood, and is enjoying a prosperous Highbury lifestyle with a considerable amount of work related travel but this is tempered by his evident love of home and many down to earth observations. Strangely, my only reservations about this book were the recipes, with their Waitrose-like lists of ingredients - not to mention an overuse of figs - and I do wonder who does his washing up. I'm off to see if the Seville oranges are in the market after reading, slightly prematurely, the 10th January entry: Jars of joy and the marmalade dragons. It is when he writes about marmalade making, as he also does in Kitchen Diaries II, that I really feel I have found a kindred spirit!
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  Elizabeth Hamilton-pearce

  This book is written as a series of diary entries from 1 November to 2nd February. Some entries have historical information, some have Nigel’s musings, some have recipes and all are written in a chatty friendly style that makes me feel like it’s ok to refer to the author as Nigel.
  
  I have really enjoyed reading this in teeny snippets over the 3 month period it covers and think that the book is perfectly designed to be read in this way.
  
  I suspect I’ll bring it back out in November and have it on my desk to keep me company through the next festive season.
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  Vanessa

  As someone who struggles to eat enough, or find much joy in food, I can truly say that this book has been nourishing to me. Slater made me fall in love with food again - with the spices, richness, and indulgences that encompass the Christmas season. More than just a meal, each recipe is woven into the narration; underlining the simple but important role that food plays within the home and amongst our loved ones. Nigel disregards the ever-prevalent restrictions, judgements and morality that our diet-conscious society (and, admittingly, myself) places on food - instead, he highlights both the specialness and simplicity of the shared hearty meals that bring us together on cold winter nights.
  
  I never wanted it to end, and plan to read it again year after year.
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  Girl

  What a lovely book! I went in expecting killer recipes (and it delivered), but the stories of Christmas and Christmas customs were amazing as well. Slater writes about winter with such love that even I, despite my lack of fondness for this season, had to be charmed. Will definitely need a copy of this book on my shelf for Christmases future.
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  Emma Rose

  A million stars. Everything I love about Christmas and more. This is a TREAT of a book about winter and all its rituals. What a gorgeous and beautiful little thing, wow. Will probably reread every year and make tons of recipes from this.
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  Mary

  Started it before Thanksgiving. I read it very slowly, because I often read the recipes, too.
  
  Mr. Slater is a special, observant, contemplative soul that shared that part of him with us. It is a gift to us, Christmas gift to the world. Thank you, Nigel Slater.
  
  Now to try some of the recipes.
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  Jeanne Webb

  I adored this book. The perfect yuletide read.
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  Ingrid

  Mijn recensie over Nigel Slater's Culinair winterdagboek (Fontaine Uitgevers) kan je nalezen op mijn blog via
  https://boeklovers.wordpress.com/2018...
  #kadotip
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  Jessica

  Enjoyed. Brought cozy, warm feelings of Christmas. Just a tad too pretentious for me. Overindulgent. Makes a dig at gluten free diets which isn't fair to coeliacs. Maybe 10 recipes I would actually cook. Mostly liked the folklore, history and description of candle scents.