Sunday, December 23, 2007

[wassailing] and maybe just a little mulled wine


What are your favourite carols = the ones you'd most like to hear tomorrow evening when they come round wassailing? The Top 10, according to the Classic FM poll:

1. O Holy Night

2. Silent Night

3. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

4. In The Bleak Midwinter - Darke

5. O Come, All Ye Faithful

6. Once In Royal David's City

7. In The Bleak Midwinter - Holst

8. O Come, O Come Emmanuel

9. O Little Town Of Bethlehem

10. Coventry Carol

So do you have your ensemble ready? Don't forget to take a hot toddy with you when you go and in order to extract maximum cash, select just two or three carols and sing them over and over. But no less, as this will get you a beating.

Mrs. Beeton's recipe:

INGREDIENTS.- To every pint of wine allow 1 large cupful of water, sugar and spice to taste.

Mode.-In making preparations like the above, it is very difficult to give the exact proportions of ingredients like sugar and spice, as what quantity might suit one person would be to another quite distasteful. Boil the spice in the water until the flavour is extracted, then add the wine and sugar, and bring the whole to the boiling-point, when serve with strips of crisp dry toast, or with biscuits.

The spices usually used for mulled wine are cloves, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon or mace. Any kind of wine may be mulled, but port and claret are those usually selected for the purpose; and the latter requires a very large proportion of sugar.

The vessel that the wine is boiled in must be delicately cleam, and should be kept exclusively for the purpose. Small tin warmers may be purchased for a trifle, which are more suitable than saucepans, as, if the latter are not scrupulously clean, they spoil the wine, by imparting to it a very disagreeable flavour. These warmers should be used for no other purpose."

13 comments:

  1. That list works fairly well, only I prefer Come All Ye Faithful in the original Latin, and Silent Night in the original German. Just my own personal tastes.
    Hope you have a good holiday season.

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  2. I prefer Oh Come All Ye Faithful in Latin as well, that's the way we were taught it.

    Though in saying that, I hope to god no carol singers show up on my door, toddy or not.

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  3. I love them all, as I am greedy like that.

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  4. Mine would be "Hark the Herals", "Oh, Come All Ye Faithful" [preferably in Latin] and "Bleak Midwinter". No one comes a-carolling here, sadly! The toddy recipe made me feel nice and warm but I think I'll stick to the g & t!

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  5. I'd have bleak midwinter. Definitely my favourite

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  7. I like all those Carols but I do not think amateurs should ruin O Holy Night. It is my favourite carol and I only want to hear it sung by the best.

    How come I don't know In the Bleak Midwinter, since everyone else does. Perhaps I do but don't know its title.

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  8. It came upon the midnight clear.


    Happy Christmas, James. :-)

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  9. And to you. I'll be round later to say it personally.

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  10. We have only had one set of Carol singers this year- three girls aged about 10. They sung "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer" in the Simpsons style- one of them interjecting ripostes between each couplet.

    It made me smile and David worked out the Simpsons connection later on.

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  11. I love In the Bleak Midwinter which I play on my clarinet.

    Have a wonderful Christmas.

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  12. Oh, that's different, I thought you wrote a "hot totty". now that really would brighten up Christmas. Indeed, I can think of one now....mmmm...

    er..carols....uh...Adeste Fideles for me!

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Comments need a moniker of your choosing before or after ... no moniker, not posted, sorry.