15 'A Christmas Carol' Recipes To Inspire Your Holiday Festivities

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What is a Dickensian Christmas, and why is this concept so firmly embedded in our collective unconscious? It all goes back to what may be Charles Dickens' most famous short story: "A Christmas Carol." While not everyone has read the book, at some point in our lives we've probably all seen at least one of the numerous movie adaptations which range from the Mr. Magoo cartoon to Disney's Jim Carrey version to about a zillion other reboots, remakes, and Hallmark Channel spins on the theme of a big old meanie redeemed by a Christmas miracle. Where Dickens' idea of Christmas has really left its mark, however, has been on Christmas food traditions. As per BBC, it's likely that the author's own impoverished childhood a la Tiny Tim led him to feel that any proper holiday celebration should involve copious amounts of delicious food.

Some of the numerous dishes mentioned in the text of "A Christmas Carol" (accessed via Project Gutenberg) include mulled wine, beer, sausages, roast turkey, roast pork, game meat, a "great piece of cold roast" of unspecified type (maybe lamb or beef?), roast chestnuts, fruits, and plum pudding. While most of our recipes aren't strictly historical ones, we've still got you covered with just about everything you'll need to create a 21^st-century Dickensian holiday feast.

Smoking Bishop may sound like a cleric with a tobacco addiction, but it's actually a drink that, like Dickens himself, dates back to Victorian times. In fact, this drink plays a major role in the happiest part of "A Christmas Carol" when Scrooge pays a visit to the Cratchits and announces to his put-upon employee, "I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob!" If you, too, have any holiday amends to make, you could do worse than to preface your apologies with a glass of this mulled wine/port mixture.

Recipe: Best Wine Cocktails You Should Be Making At Home

Yet another way you can honor Dickensian tradition without indulging in alcohol is to use the stuff for baking. Beer is something Mr. Fezziwig's Christmas celebration had in plenty — this character, in case you've forgotten, is Scrooge's kindly first employer who was resurrected by the Ghost of Christmas past. Although his apprentices (the young Scrooge among them) were most likely drinking the beer at their holiday party, this beverage can also be used in bread-baking thanks to its yeast. With this easy bread recipe, there's no need for the proofing, kneading, and rising that traditional loaves typically require. Instead, you'll simply stir up a few simple ingredients and your beer bread will be ready for the oven.

Recipe: Beer Bread

Besides the sausages, the festive (albeit imagined) spread laid out by the Ghost of Christmas Present included a suckling pig, but this is a dish that's far too large for most 21st-century holiday gatherings. What's more, it can also be somewhat off-putting to modern diners unused to eating meat with the head still attached. As a more palatable, cheaper, and more manageable option, we suggest a roast pork tenderloin. This meaty dish is both traditional and sufficiently festive for your Yuletide celebrations, but it won't require hauling out any heavy weaponry in order to carve it — and won't give you the stink-eye as you do so.

Recipe: Roasted Pork Tenderloin

We are not actually sure whether "A Christmas Carol" makes any mention of lamb or even mutton — the latter meat being the more grown-up (and usually tougher) version. It does, however, speak of "great joints of meat," and if a rack of lamb isn't technically a joint, well, what can we say? It's not easy to come by knees and elbows in the meat department these days. Roast lamb, though, is a dish that was known in Victorian England as it appears in Mrs. Beeton's 1861 "The Book of Household Management," so we stand by our assertion that it would make for a suitably Dickensian entrée.

Recipe: Tender Rack Of Lamb

Most of the games in "A Christmas Carol" are the kind that party guests might play, with blind-man's buff rating a mention along with something called "How, When, and Where" that may have been the 19th-century equivalent of Never Have I Ever. A couple of times, however, the word game is used to refer to something you eat and venison was not unknown on Victorian Christmas tables. Per English Heritage, it was a popular British holiday dish at the time. While deer meat's not typically sold in supermarkets, if you're a hunter or know someone who is, you might be able to wangle a pound of ground venison. That way, you can make this savory meatloaf and carry on a time-honored tradition.

Recipe: Easy Venison Meatloaf

While the oranges mentioned in "A Christmas Carol" are the plain, unadorned kind, back in 1840s England these probably weren't too easy to come by. They probably needed to be imported from some far-off warm climate in the days when boats were slow and refrigeration consisted of nothing more than chunks of ice. Though we take plain old oranges are something we take for granted these days, we're not going to give you a recipe that asks you to move to Florida and plant a tree. Rather, it's a way to re-purpose orange peels by giving them a delicious candy coating. Add these treats to a candy tray for nibbling on or use it to garnish other desserts.

Recipe: Candied Orange Peel

Described as "luscious," pears are yet another one of the fruits that the Santa Claus-like Ghost of Christmas Present pulls out of his big bag of holiday tricks. If you received a box of Harry & David's finest as a gift, you could perhaps just pile them up in a bowl, but if you want to dress the pears up a bit, we suggest you try poaching them. These spiced, syrup-glazed pears can make for a simple, healthy(ish) dessert, or they could also work as a sweet and fruity side to complement a rich dish like roast pork.

Recipe: Poached Pears