Christmas festivities in hotels took an unpleasant turn when a hotel in Jaipur was overwhelmed by a controversy over its annual ‘Christmas cake-mixing’ ceremony a few weeks ago. It was an unusual situation. These events are celebratory, marking a change in the festive season, a transition from Diwali to Christmas in the Indian context. The Christmas tree in the lobby dresses up, the pastry chef starts to bake ‘bricks’ for the gingerbread house—brick by brick—and the ‘mix’ that goes into the Christmas cake is steeped in alcohol for a month. Christmas festivities are usually parenthesised with children. Truth be told, guests who are parents are mostly interested in their children being a part of the cheer. As it turned out, this hotel, like many others, invited a select group of regular guests and their families to the cake-mixing ceremony. In the precocious times of Junior Master Chef and Sunday brunches in glitzy hotels that have special live stations, with sundae-making, etc, just for kids, it’s hard to say no to a child who wants to get involved. So the hotel didn’t. What followed in the time of camera phones was predictable. Images of children participating in this function with alcohol in clear view became an outrage-worthy occurrence. The photographs went viral and the excise department took a strong view of the incident after complaints issued by ‘well-wishers’. The attending parents disagreed and tried to diffuse the situation, but to no avail. The hyper-sensitive hospitality world took cognizance and, now, children, accompanied by parents and guardians, are no longer invited to cake-mixing ceremonies. I didn’t realise the impact of this controversy till I was invited to one myself and saw no children there—an unusual sight— and I was immediately reminded of the recent brouhaha.
One thing that became evident with the proportions this controversy gained is how hollow our understanding of celebrations is. The over-commercialisation of festivals has led to spurious interpretations that generate consent or outrage. In one debate, the ‘cultural’ argument was summoned, the basic line being that this was an entirely ‘western’ concept. However, this could be further from the truth. My childhood was filled with great cheer when my grandfather’s dear friend Uncle Samson would visit with the annual Allahabadi Christmas cake in hand. And it couldn’t be more Indian—its ingredients telling its own story, with home-made desi ghee, which substitutes for butter, almonds, nuts, cashews and raisins steeped in rum or brandy, jeera, murrabbas, saunf, etc. A very ‘Indian’ cake in its imagination and construction. Just as Indian as, I daresay, the jalebi that traces its roots to West Asia. But then, culinary history is enticing for this very reason and for the force of its cultural mutability, which is inadvertently a celebration—manufactured controversies not withstanding.
The Christmas cake is an ‘English’ tradition so to speak and finds its origin in the plum porridge or pudding that can trace its history back to medieval England. Like with the history of most food, its purpose was a practical one—people ate this porridge to line their stomachs on Christmas eve after a day of fasting. The ingredients evolved with time, but the ‘plum’ remained, which is not a reference to the fruit, but a Victorian word for ‘raisins’, an essential ingredient. It was only in the 16th century that hardiness gave way to indulgence and oatmeal was replaced with flour, butter and eggs, lending this dish a sturdier composition than porridge. The ingredients held, were first boiled and then later baked by its wealthier patrons, giving birth to what we now call the Christmas cake. It is a recipe that has travelled the world, picking up nuances from all its new homes. So if in India, saunf finds its way into the recipe, in Scotland, the Whisky Dunddee is a popular variant, with the famous Scotch whisky being an essential additive. There are, of course, other references as well. In the 1980s in Japan, ‘Christmas cake’ was a slight used for women who remained unmarried post the nubile age of 25 years. In the intervening decades, this term has lost traction in no small measure boosted by the fact that staying unmarried in Japan (for women) is no longer that much of a stigma!
Advaita kala
Advaita Kala is a writer, most recently of the film Kahaani. She is also a former hotelier having worked in restaurants in India and abroad
