How the panettone passes the parcel has become one of my Christmas traditions
A normal Christmas is predicted, and thanks to that, the Ritual Police are now on patrol. I am not complaining; I include myself among them. Loading the freezer with sausage rolls for the party I plan to throw on Boxing Day, I enjoy the soothing embrace of order and repetition, the sense that all is temporarily well in the world. Very few things currently give me more pleasure than the sound of my little niece telling me about her idea of a real Christmas. "We have beef, not turkey," she says in a voice that comes straight from Barchester Towers (I play a pleading Mrs Proudie to her austere Archdeacon Grantly).
>It's strange to think how little Christmas has changed in my life and how much. In 2022, I have a hard time explaining to younger people that as children, my brother and I received edible smoking sets from our grandmother: a chocolate pipe, a cigar and cigarettes nicely arranged on a wooden tray. molded plastic. The expressions on their faces insist that I'm crazy. Yet there will surely never be a Christmas at the end of which no one stays to watch a Quality Street Strawberry Hill; there is no Brexit deal that will resolve this particular surplus. Certain rituals, of course, take time to establish. But afterwards they cling like ivy. In the 1980s, my family started going out to an Indian restaurant on Christmas Eve, so that day is now unimaginable without poppadoms. Suggest fish and chips, and there will be blood, not ketchup.
All of which brings me to the question of the panettone curse. This sweet Italian bread, in the shape of a duomo and lightly punctuated with candied bark, has been waiting for us for years, first an exotic luxury, then a commonplace up there with poinsettias and horrible Christmas lattes. But it's undoubtedly the existence of Waitrose's £5.50 do-it-yourself panettone kit that really baffles me. Isn't the point of panettone that it comes in a pretty box? How on earth are we supposed to observe what has become one of our main Christmas rituals if we all start doing our own?
That's how it goes. Someone, somewhere is buying a panettone. I say. It is hard to imagine this shadowy figure, the Initiator; like the person starting a chain letter, they seem distant, perhaps even slightly sinister. But they're there anyway, handing over their money in exchange for a giant cloud of Italian nothingness. Cut to a few days later (although given the expiration dates of the panettone, we could be talking weeks or months later). Imagine that same man or woman arriving at a house, happily dangling their panettone from a ribbon on one finger. Ding Dong! A bell rings, a door opens, cries of joy are heard.
Signalling is of course effortless. No one will break ranks. Everyone is in the pantomime. Here is an abundant bounty. And here too, it's sophistication: the spirit of Leonardo and Michelangelo, Dante and Boccaccio, in a practical and cooked format. After that, everyone gets into wine and chips, the panettone having already been quickly dispatched to a cupboard under the stairs.
And it begins. The reel moves on again, until the panettone is picked up by its recipient, who now urgently needs a gift to take elsewhere. And so, the (allegedly) noble Italian cake whose roots go back to the Roman Empire embarks on its long circumnavigation of the British city in which it is located, a sort of Christmas master key. And so it goes, a journey that, although it may last as long as any of Marco Polo's journeys, always ends the same way. In many moons, someone remotely ingenious will stop the prank – arrivederci, pane strano! – and turn the thing into bread and butter pudding, or even toast.
Yes. According to the traditions, this one is very strange and so much less fun than sailing or wearing a Christmas sweater. But it seems to be here to stay. A visit to my own cupboard under the stairs reveals three panettones currently in residence. They wait in silence, these ambassadors of saffron and cardboard. It's almost as if they know the moment will soon be upon them.
A normal Christmas is predicted, and thanks to that, the Ritual Police are now on patrol. I am not complaining; I include myself among them. Loading the freezer with sausage rolls for the party I plan to throw on Boxing Day, I enjoy the soothing embrace of order and repetition, the sense that all is temporarily well in the world. Very few things currently give me more pleasure than the sound of my little niece telling me about her idea of a real Christmas. "We have beef, not turkey," she says in a voice that comes straight from Barchester Towers (I play a pleading Mrs Proudie to her austere Archdeacon Grantly).
>It's strange to think how little Christmas has changed in my life and how much. In 2022, I have a hard time explaining to younger people that as children, my brother and I received edible smoking sets from our grandmother: a chocolate pipe, a cigar and cigarettes nicely arranged on a wooden tray. molded plastic. The expressions on their faces insist that I'm crazy. Yet there will surely never be a Christmas at the end of which no one stays to watch a Quality Street Strawberry Hill; there is no Brexit deal that will resolve this particular surplus. Certain rituals, of course, take time to establish. But afterwards they cling like ivy. In the 1980s, my family started going out to an Indian restaurant on Christmas Eve, so that day is now unimaginable without poppadoms. Suggest fish and chips, and there will be blood, not ketchup.
All of which brings me to the question of the panettone curse. This sweet Italian bread, in the shape of a duomo and lightly punctuated with candied bark, has been waiting for us for years, first an exotic luxury, then a commonplace up there with poinsettias and horrible Christmas lattes. But it's undoubtedly the existence of Waitrose's £5.50 do-it-yourself panettone kit that really baffles me. Isn't the point of panettone that it comes in a pretty box? How on earth are we supposed to observe what has become one of our main Christmas rituals if we all start doing our own?
That's how it goes. Someone, somewhere is buying a panettone. I say. It is hard to imagine this shadowy figure, the Initiator; like the person starting a chain letter, they seem distant, perhaps even slightly sinister. But they're there anyway, handing over their money in exchange for a giant cloud of Italian nothingness. Cut to a few days later (although given the expiration dates of the panettone, we could be talking weeks or months later). Imagine that same man or woman arriving at a house, happily dangling their panettone from a ribbon on one finger. Ding Dong! A bell rings, a door opens, cries of joy are heard.
Signalling is of course effortless. No one will break ranks. Everyone is in the pantomime. Here is an abundant bounty. And here too, it's sophistication: the spirit of Leonardo and Michelangelo, Dante and Boccaccio, in a practical and cooked format. After that, everyone gets into wine and chips, the panettone having already been quickly dispatched to a cupboard under the stairs.
And it begins. The reel moves on again, until the panettone is picked up by its recipient, who now urgently needs a gift to take elsewhere. And so, the (allegedly) noble Italian cake whose roots go back to the Roman Empire embarks on its long circumnavigation of the British city in which it is located, a sort of Christmas master key. And so it goes, a journey that, although it may last as long as any of Marco Polo's journeys, always ends the same way. In many moons, someone remotely ingenious will stop the prank – arrivederci, pane strano! – and turn the thing into bread and butter pudding, or even toast.
Yes. According to the traditions, this one is very strange and so much less fun than sailing or wearing a Christmas sweater. But it seems to be here to stay. A visit to my own cupboard under the stairs reveals three panettones currently in residence. They wait in silence, these ambassadors of saffron and cardboard. It's almost as if they know the moment will soon be upon them.
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