Christmas is coming/ The goose is getting fat/ Please put a penny in/ The old man's hat - Old English begging rhyme
The dining table has always been a big part of Christmas celebrations, and today's traditional Christmas meals are varied, often featuring honey-baked hams, roast beef or the ever-popular roast turkey. Turkey however, is a relatively new highlight of the Christmas feast, not having made its way to the tables of Dickens' England until the seventeenth century. Prior to turkey, traditional holiday menus included roast swan, geese, capons, pheasants, peacocks and, for an extra special treat, roast boar's head served with an apple in its mouth and accented with holly and fruit.Those in Chicago looking to set a traditional holiday table may find a shortage of swans and peacocks, but ducks, geese, and other game birds can easily be had on the city's Near West side. As the sign says, "This is It": Williams Live Chickens, at Chicago and Ashland, is the place to go for a huge selection of live honkers and quackers sold at retail and "killed and cleaned for free." Staffers in hard-hats and raincoats are ready to pluck you a fat duck for $1.60 per pound. Cages on top of cages of noisy, feathered and very much alive options await your fancy. If getting to know your dinner in the barnyard before you eat it bothers you, you may want to stick the Perdue selections at your local grocery.
Just west on Chicago Avenue, Alliance Poultry Farms - where they sell "Pollos - Live or Dressed" - discreetly keeps their livestock selection in the back room. Alliance usually carries a few geese and ducks, at $1.59 per pound, during the holidays, but doesn't consider them big movers. Around the block and just north on Western, Western Poultry Company carries a full range of holiday poultry options, including geese, ducks, quail and guinea hens.
The Cratchits probably enjoyed eating mince meat pies as a side to their Christmas goose. Mince pies, a British tradition served only at Christmas, were originally made with scraps of meat, dried fruit, spices and sugar. They were shaped like a crib and decorated with a pastry baby Jesus. Although it's hard to find a traditional mince pie in Chicago today, you can find just about any other savory meat or vegetable pie at Piesz. Opened last October in the food court of the James R. Thompson Center, Piesz is a new concept in fast-food introduced by Richard Levy, a young South African who bears no relation to Chicago's own Levy restaurateurs. Piez's tasty pies, just $2.95 each, include updated twists on traditional selections like Aussie sizzlin' pepper steak and hearty beef stew; innovative numbers such as Thai chicken, Cajun jambalaya and BBQ Dixie pork; as well as vegetarian options like Popeye's Passion, stuffed with spinach and cheddar. Thirteen different pies in all - but sorry, no mince.
Intent on topping off your meal with a Christmas pudding? Try Hudson Club, where a "Christmas Carol" dinner, held in conjunction with that production's run at the Goodman Theatre, is served through December 29. The menu features butternut squash soup, wood-roasted goose breast and goose confit with wild rice, peppered cranberry relish and natural jus, as well as steamed persimmon pudding with hard sauce, which Tiny Tim might find slightly dense and dry.
For those who want all the traditions - including the roast boar - in one place, check out the fifteenth annual Charles Dickens Buffet at the Drake Hotel. Roast rib-eye with Yorkshire pudding, steak and kidney pie, Scotch eggs, potted pheasant, ox tongue and head cheese, rabbit terrine, trifle, bread pudding and other classic options are served with newer holiday menu highlights like Cajun calamari and toasted mini bagels. The climax of the meal is the Boar's Head Parade, a campy march around the dining room by the chefs and Santa, who tote a boar's head (created from tallow), giant flaming plum pudding and Yule log. Hundreds of people attend daily, so reservations are recommended.
In the words of the Ancient Saxons, "Wes hal." Good health and good holiday eating to all of you and yours from all of us and ours at Newcity.
- Alliance Poultry Farms, 1636 West Chicago, (312)829-1458.
The Drake Hotel, 140 East Walton Place, (312)787-2200, ext. 4068.
Hudson Club, 504 North Wells, (312)312-467-1947.
Piesz, The James R. Thompson Center, 100 West Randolph, (312)458-0300.
Western Poultry Co., 950 North Western. (773)489-2110.
Williams Live Chickens, 1512 West Chicago, (312)666-6138.
(A. Laban)
copyright 1998 New City Communications, Inc.