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Old English Dishes: Christmas

The many carols on the boar's head and on ale which have come down to us from old MSS. show in what request the one stood as a viand and the other as a beverage. At certain seasons it was the habitual custom to serve a particular dish first, as a boar's head at Christmas,— "Furst set forthe mustard & brawne of boore, the wild swyne," a goose at Michaelmas, and a gammon of bacon at Easter. The boar's head was set upon its neck upon the platter, with an apple or a lemon in its mouth and sprigs of rosemary in its ears and nose, the platter being additionally decorated with garlands. Thus garnished and heralded by trumpets, it was borne to the king's table on a salver of gold or silver by the server, followed by a procession of nobles, knights, and ladies. In Scotland it was sometimes brought to table surrounded by banners displaying the colours and achievements of the baron at whose board it was served. From time immemorial the double loin or baron of beef has been a royal dish, and one especially selected is always sent from Windsor to Osborne to appear at the dinner-table, accompanied by that other Christmas dish, the boar's head, sent of late from Germany. The oldest carol on the boar's head is probably that of the Balliol MS., of which there are numerous versions: "Caput Apri Refero Resonens laudes domino.

The boris hed In hondis I brynge with garlondis gay & byrdis syngynge:

I pray you all helpe me to synge, Qui estis in convinio. "The boris hede, I understonde, ys cheffe seruyce in all this londe: wher-so-ever it may be fonde, Seruitur cum sinapio. "The boris hede, I dare well say, anon after the xijth day he taketh his leve and goth a-way.

Exiuit tunc de patria."