Weihnachtsgebäck

A Brit abroad will do a lot to recreate that special feeling of being on home soil for the run-up to Christmas. This Brit may have spent his time happily downing a lot of Glühwein and stuffing his face with Zimtsterne, but there's a little piece of home that has been missing.

Fortunately, M was here for the past three weeks and brought a lot of British loot in his suitcase, like sweets, converse, stuffing mix and mincemeat. Oh yes, you read the last two correctly. Yesterday is was freezing cold again in Basel and the fairy cake tin I bought from Migros almost froze to my hand on the walk home, but the afternoon was spent quite happily baking mince pies and listening to Christmas music on the 'tube.

The reaction to one of my favourite foods was expectedly strange. I can't help but feel that English food tends to have a strange taste to it- think of mincemeat and brown sauce, for example. I once read that in the past British cooks would happily mix sweet and savoury flavours (like the do in North African cuisine now). Anyway, my housemates didn't come across as convinced by mincepies. I wouldn't mind, but on Monday I'm cooking a Christmas dinner with most of the trimmings, and there's a Christmas Cake for dessert... Hopefully they'll be too drunk by then.