'Festive TV rams grub down our throats, but have we had our fill of Xmas food?'

23 December 2023 , 16:29

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Nigella’s Amsterdam Christmas (Image: BBC Studios / Jay Brooks)

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without slobbing on the sofa and scoffing (shop-bought) food while watching someone else cook something festive.

In fact, the more cookery shows we are fed, the less we cook. We sit. We’re good at that. Has anyone in the history of time ever actually followed a recipe as they watched on telly? Are you ready to go when Nigella pulls out her artisan gingerbread and organic spices? I buy the recipe books afterwards but they stay immaculate. They have never known the well-earned spatter of olive oil.

A quick glance at the TV guide this Christmas and it reads like a menu, serving up hours of food-related shows. Our appetite for this stuff is never sated. So far, we’ve had Celebrity MasterChef: Christmas Cook-Off 2023, The Hairy Bikers: Coming Home for Christmas, Jamie’s Christmas Shortcuts and – the plum in the pud – Nigella’s Amsterdam Christmas. The sultry chef took her hair rollers and cocktail shaker to the Netherlands, where it was business as usual. Doe eyes at everything from the spoon to the local cheesemonger, a flick of the eyelashes, a licking of lips and everything with added butter.

No one says “succulent” and means it quite like Nigella. Her pastries were “plump and puffy”. “At Christmas, who isn’t?” she purred. She makes a good point. Having been seduced by the domestic goddess, there is still time to watch The Great Christmas Bake Off tonight, as well as a veritable banquet of other shows.

At first, the sight of a schedule full of cookery programmes made me want to throw the TV out, along with my unused “must-have” air fryer. Haven’t we had our fill of kitchen nightmares, 30-minute meals, 15-minute meals, money-saving meals, easy meals, food adventures, Italian feasts, festive feasts, cook offs and bake offs, and, well, a partridge in a pear tree (grown in an orchard, then visited in a factory by Gregg Wallace in a blue hair net)? What else can they possibly ram down our throats?

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There’s a TV chef to suit every personality: the sweary one, the flirty one, the thrifty one, the one you wish was your granny… We see chefs, celebs and home cooks compete endlessly as we watch, slightly guiltily, while reaching for another mince pie (that we did not make). But the truth is I am still watching – and Christmas IS food.

And no one will ever know that I’m here in a reclined position, watching only for the souffle sagas and twinkly lights. Oh, just bring me a figgy pudding. I’m suddenly rather hungry…

Sara Wallis