Christmas food can create a lot of work but, writes Mark Taylor, it's all down to preparation
Love it or hate it, Christmas is the busiest time of the year in the catering industry.
With office parties booked throughout December, not to mention Christmas Day lunches and New Year's Eve events, the festive season is the biggest money-spinner of the calendar.
The Christmas period is also the most physically demanding time for staff, with the long days rolling into one big festive blur.
For the kitchen in particular, Christmas is a trying time, with chefs having to accept the fact that they will be knocking out the same set menus throughout December. It's
no wonder that most chefs hate the sight of turkey by the time they sit down for their own Christmas lunch.
Although many pubs refuse to open on Christmas Day itself, most food-driven pubs will serve a set, fixed-priced festive
menu through December.
These can vary vastly in price, ranging from £15 for two courses in some pubs to upwards of £75 per person for a six-course feast in others.
The key to the menu creation is variety and good value. In any party of four or six people these days, there is almost certainly going to be at least one vegetarian and one fish lover, so always make sure there are non-meat and non-poultry choices on offer.
Ask any pub chef or licensee about tips for Christmas menus and the answer will invariably be "preparation".
Andrew Woodward of the Boat Inn at Stoke Bruerne, Northants, loads his Christmas menu onto the pub's website on 1 January. The pub's Christmas Day lunch costs £70 per person and the 70 covers are usually booked by the summer.
"I'm automatically booked up for Christmas Day from one year to the next," he says. "It's always worth doing food at
Christmas, as long as you're organised well in advance and you source your suppliers as early as possible."
Julie Reeman runs the Black Horse Inn at Thurnham, near Maidstone, Kent. She starts writing Christmas menus in July and sends out postcards to people in the area in August.
She says: "We prepare as much as we can in advance. We do a postcard mail-out in August and that helps because the bookings start coming in from then, rather than getting an influx in December.
"Christmas Day is always fully booked with about 85 covers at £47.95 per person. We already have people on a waiting list for any last-minute cancellations."
Planning in advance is key for the kitchen. Many pubs run two or three Christmas menus at the same time - often alongside the usual à la carte.
Paul Berry, head chef at the busy Green Dragon pub in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, says that advance preparation
is vital, as well as making sure the rest of the kitchen staff know exactly what is expected of them.
Paul's pre-Christmas preparation also includes testing out the entire menu in advance. "We test out all of our Christmas dishes (apart from the turkey) from August onwards," he says.
"We have a special Simply Dinner evening on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we introduce the dishes then. It gives us a
chance to try them out and also we see how the customers respond to them. If a particular dish doesn't go down very well, then it comes off the Christmas menu. We then have another dry-run in November."
Simon Horsfall, of the Bear of Rodborough, Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, is also in no doubt that it is worth opening for Christmas Day. "It's just as cost effective for people to eat out on Christmas Day and people like to leave
it to others to do the cooking," he says. "It's less stressful, they don't have to do the washing up and they can relax more. I would certainly eat out on Christmas Day - but then I'm always working!"