What's in season: December
Harvesting in the garden
The tastes and smells of Christmas
The evocative tastes and smells of Christmas owe much to the variety of herbs and spices that have found their way from across the globe and into our gardens and kitchens.
Our festive celebrations would have a lot less flavour if we only used native herbs in our winter dishes. We've been growing sage, rosemary, bay and thyme for so long that it's easy to forget they originally come from the Mediterranean. Many herbs arrived with the Romans and were soon cultivated in gardens for culinary and medicinal use. They were popular during medieval times and were often used in dishes for special occasions.
The rise of colonialism during the 17th century saw the introduction of flavours from East Asia and the trade in spices such as cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger. It was only possible to grow the plants that produced these spices in European gardens if there was a heated glasshouse.
Initially, the scarcity of these spices made them very expensive and only enjoyed by wealthy diners. Mince pies with their blended spicy filling were popular during the Stuart and Georgian times and became something of a Christmas status symbol. Gradually, through a combination of wider cultivation and improved transport, the price of spices fell. By the Victorian times many spices were readily available and commonly used at Christmas.