Someone take charge of the Christmas turkey!

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A while ago, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She made a full recovery. But one of the consequences was that my father took the reins in the kitchen. My mother’s cooking had always been consistent: the same dishes prepared the same way and routinely delicious. My father took a more freewheeling approach. Recipes were starting points, not guiding principles, and dishes interpretations rather than recreations of family favourites. A lamb curry might include all the same ingredients that my mother used, but myriad others, too. The surprise was just how often the results were not only good but great. My father, it turned out, could cook.

At Christmas, responsibility for cooking the turkey and all the trimmings fell to my brother and his wife. They weren’t daunted by Christmas lunch per se (“It’s just a roast,” they said) so much as by delivering a meal for 10 with the single oven in their kitchen. Everyone came to the table a lot drunker from the longer-than-usual wait.

Whatever the reasons for passing the baton, the handover can be loaded with potential mishap. “I cooked Christmas lunch two years ago to give my stepdad, who does 100 per cent of the cooking in our family, a break,” says HTSI commissioning editor Rosanna Dodds. “I put the turkey in the Aga overnight. When I woke up it was dust. We vowed never to switch roles again.” 

I put the turkey in the Aga overnight. When I woke up it was dust

For PR director Alex Scripps, the shift was prompted by his mother suddenly falling ill with asthma. “She lost all her energy and went from being a big feeder and mother hen to not being able to go in the kitchen,” he says. Scripps stepped up. “But it took my mum a long time to relinquish control. Being able to feed her family had been a badge of pride. To lose that and have to quit her job as a dinner lady was hard. But once she improved and could cook again she was happy to have someone else cook for her.”

This year, food writer Catherine Phipps is having to delegate to her husband Shariq and 14-year-old son Adam as she recovers from surgery. “I’m an absolute control freak about the food I buy and how it gets prepped,” she admits. In previous years, the most her husband and son have done is chop vegetables – “then I pick over them and hand them back if necessary”. Given her husband’s greater shortcomings (“He’s good at reheating,” Phipps concedes), she is counting on Adam (“a fastidious cook”) and trying to see this as an opportunity. “If this goes well, Adam can take over more. By his age I was cooking quite a lot at home.” 

Some handovers are coupled with grief. Charles Nash set up Sutton Hoo Chickens with his wife Belinda in 1994. When he died in 2009, his absence was particularly felt when it came to carving up the roast. “That was Dad’s proud moment,” says Nash’s daughter Josie. “My mum didn’t like to carve and took years to get as good as him. Even after mum got a new partner, she didn’t ask him to do it because it had always been my father’s thing.”

For publicity manager Ruth Tewkesbury, this December is the first since both her parents died. “Christmas used to fill me with excitement, now it’s dread,” she says of the pressure of hosting for the first time by herself. Still, she’s excited to recreate her mother’s classics like her Bailey’s cheesecake and glad to be starting her own traditions, such as curry on Christmas Eve and a cheeseboard with something fancier than supermarket stilton.

Food writer Tim Anderson’s brother has been on turkey duties for the Anderson clan for the past 13 years. Tim casually offered to host this year, expecting to be rebuffed, but his brother accepted. “I was like, ‘Oh shit,’ and instantly started to worry my bird won’t be half as good as his. Then I reasoned, ‘I can’t do it as well as him if I do it the way he does it, so I’ll do my own thing.’ The wings and legs will be confited in duck fat and butter and the breasts brined and done in the sous vide. I hate myself because it’s cheffy and not traditional. But if you can’t be the best, be different.”

Phipps has similar advice: “A lot of people feel the pressure to do the roast or stuffing the same way. I say pick what’s important for you, try to do that well and don’t sweat the rest.” 

@ajesh34