CHRISTMAS is known for being the most wonderful time of year, and that couldn’t be more true for Lucy Brazier from River Cottage.

She wrote Christmas At River Cottage during England’s third lockdown in early 2021, which involved cooking and eating at least three turkeys. “There are probably very few people who could really get through it and still be excited about Christmas,” she says with a laugh.

“And I am one them – I probably was the right person to write it because I’m clinging onto the magic.”

Brazier has worked with chef and telly presenter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall at River Cottage for over a decade, and now she’s finally bringing her festive dreams to life in the cookbook, which is full of Christmas recipes, craft activities and more.

For Brazier, a love of Christmas runs in the family: “My mother’s really good at it, and my grandmother was as well,” she says. “So I was brought up in a house where it was the finale of the year and we saved up so everything was special and magical, and we had a lot of food. It’s sort of classic working-class, saving all year to throw a bit of a party at the end.”

Now cooking and organising duties fall on her, Brazier admits Christmas is quite different. “I still want that buzz I had when I was a child – that true excitement, which I think you only get when you’re not the one doing Christmas,” she says wistfully. “But I always try and find that moment in whatever I’m doing.” There are a few perks of being an adult during the festive period; for starters you can drink mulled cider (“a massive plus”) as well as being allowed to “open the fridge and eat what you want”, she says.

When you’re a dedicated Christmas lover, it’s certainly not a last-minute affair. Brazier started preparations in September, both at home and at River Cottage, by stacking the larder with “lots of treats – pickles and chutneys and things we can then pull out”. Then came Stir-up Sunday, the last Sunday in November when you make your Christmas pudding. “That’s the start of Christmas proper for me,” explains Brazier. “I stir up my pudding and make some mincemeat for the mince pies – that’s the signal it’s going to start. But I have already got a lot in the larder… No one wants to get to the middle of December and think, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got this massive list of things to do’ – when in fact you can reach into the cupboard and get out your chutneys and pickled cabbage, it’s quite handy.”

Despite her diligent preparations, Brazier admits things will still likely go wrong on the day. “Every Christmas is not perfect,” she says, and is not here to tell you there’s a magic fix to make everything go smoothly. “My honest answer is it’s quite stressful,” she says. “Having spent years doing it, being organised, writing a book about it and working at River Cottage, I still feel stressed – there’s always a moment just before everything when I feel stressed about it.”

To alleviate some of this anxiety, she advocates for “old-fashioned organisation”. “I tend to have a stack of stuff like a spare couple of jars for presents or a bottle of brandy – if there’s stuff that I’ve forgotten or I’ve used up, I’ll have a little store of things I can go to,” she says. And if things do go wrong – maybe you’ve forgotten an ingredient or burnt a dish – “it really doesn’t matter”.

Brazier is particularly looking forward to this Christmas because last year’s was so muted due to Covid-related restrictions. She hopes people “will celebrate it maybe in a more traditional sense – just in getting together and eating something delicious and having a lovely drink, just having a lovely time together without the pressure of presents or whatever those stresses people have.”

Despite her love of the festive period, there’s one tradition Brazier could do without: sending cards. “I hate Christmas cards and have done for a long time,” she says passionately. “That’s partly to do with waste, and partly to do with – what’s the point of giving someone a Christmas card that you’re seeing? You hand it to them and they hand you one back, it seems a pointless thing to me. If I’ve got family in America that’s different, I would send them a card, but when it’s your neighbour or someone you work with, you don’t really need to.”

Minimising the eyewatering waste of Christmas is a big part of Brazier’s mission. “It’s close to the heart of River Cottage and everything we do there, and it’s been important to Hugh from the beginning of his career,” she explains. “We’re still learning, but we’ve tried to find answers to all those sustainable questions. When we get to Christmas, personally I feel we really don’t need half the things we have.”

She suggests easy swaps, such as using old tote bags instead of wrapping paper. “There was a period of time in the Eighties and Nineties when decadence and excess and luxury [were everything],” she muses. “We’re not in that anymore – it’s great we’re not in it, and we can all make little changes for a sustainable life. It’s harder at Christmas because people want the excess and we want to be surrounded by enough food and drink, but there are other ways to achieve it.”

Ultimately, she says these small changes don’t make “Christmas less Christmas”.

Christmas At River Cottage by Lucy Brazier and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is published by Bloomsbury Publishing, priced £22. Photography by Charlotte Bland.

CHESTNUT AND CHOCOLATE CAKE RECIPE

250g peeled cooked chestnuts (vacuum-packed or tinned are fine)

250g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids), broken up

250g unsalted butter, roughly cut up

Preheat the oven to 170°C/Fan 150°C/Gas 3, and grease and line your 25cm springform cake tin. Put the chestnuts and milk into a pan and heat until just boiling. Take off the heat and mash well with a potato masher – you are aiming for a creamy purée, with just a few crumbly bits of chestnut. Set aside. Put the chocolate and butter into a second pan and place over a very low heat. Keeping a close eye, to ensure that the chocolate doesn’t get too hot, melt them gently together, stirring now and then. Allow to cool a little. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl until blended and creamy (they don’t need to reach a ‘moussy’ stage). Stir in the warm (not hot) chocolate mixture and then the chestnut purée, to create a well-blended batter. Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until they hold stiff peaks. Take one spoonful of egg white and mix it into the batter to loosen it, then fold the rest in lightly, trying not to knock out too much air. Carefully transfer the mixture to the prepared tin. Bake for 25–30 minutes until the cake is just set but with a slight wobble still in the centre. To serve warm, leave to cool a little then release the cake from the tin. Slice carefully – it will be very soft and moussy. Alternatively, leave the cake to go cold, when it will have set a bit firmer.

RED CABBAGE AND BEETROOT PICKLE RECIPE

200g beetroot, peeled and grated

Finely grated zest of 2 oranges

10g cumin seeds, toasted and bashed

5g caraway seeds toasted and bashed

First, prepare the pickling liquor. Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, pour on 200ml water and slowly bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and set aside to infuse for an hour. Meanwhile, put the beetroot, red cabbage, orange zest and spices into a bowl and toss to mix. Bring the infused pickling liquor back to the boil, then pour it through a sieve straight over the veg mix. Stir to combine. This pickle is nice to eat as soon as it cools, but ideally should be packed into a sterilised 1.5L Kilner jar, sealed and left for a couple of weeks. It will keep in a cool, dark cupboard for up to six months; once opened, it needs to be stored in the fridge.

500g fresh or vac-packed chestnuts

2tbsp rapeseed or olive oil

1 head of celery, tough outer stems removed, finely chopped

12 plump prunes, stoned and roughly chopped

A couple of sprigs of thyme, leaves picked

A small bunch of parsley, leaves picked and chopped

100g fresh (or stale) breadcrumbs

50g hazelnuts, roughly bashed, and/or pumpkin seeds (optional)

Sea salt and black pepper

If you are preparing whole chestnuts from scratch, make a small slit in the skin of each one, then blanch in boiling water for about two minutes to ease peeling. Drain and, once cool enough to handle, peel off both the tough outer skin and the thin, brown inner skin. Now simmer in unsalted water for 15–20 minutes, until completely tender. Drain and leave to cool. Put the chestnuts (home-cooked or vac-packed) into a bowl and break up roughly with a fork – they should be crumbled rather than puréed. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and celery and sweat for 10–15 minutes, until softened and golden. Add the prunes, chestnuts, herbs and some salt and pepper. Mix well and cook for another eight to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat. When the mixture has cooled a little, mix in all but a handful of the breadcrumbs until well combined. You can add a dash of warm water or veg stock if that’s needed to bring it together. Preheat the oven to 190°C/Fan 170°C/Gas 5. Oil an ovenproof dish and pile in the stuffing, packing it down fairly firmly. Rough up the surface a bit with a fork, then scatter over the reserved breadcrumbs and hazelnuts and/or pumpkin seeds if including. Trickle over a little more oil, and bake for about 30 minutes until nicely browned and crisp on top. Serve hot.

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