BONNIE TEECE
Christmas has always been an important time for my family.
Although my family isn’t religious, Christmas is a period when all of us are able to come home, catch up, and bond over a meal of our shared heritage.
I have a large family on my mother’s side, a cacophony of relatives - great-grandparents, grandparents, step-grandparents, ex-step-grandparents, aunts, half-aunts, half-uncles, cousins. Not to mention the stray friends we accumulate at Christmas time, because we don’t want anyone to be lonely at Christmas.
My grandparents moved to Australia with my great-grandparents and my eldest aunt in the late 1960s. They came over from Kent in England, and first settled in Newcastle - a city along the coast, two-hours’ drive north of Sydney. Two more children and almost a decade later, my grandparents split up - then both remarried and had more children.
My mum had me when she was 16, and it was a bit of a turbulent time. My biological father was in prison, but my mum’s boyfriend became my dad. As we didn’t have much money when I was young, we kept on the move. We moved so often that I went to four different schools in one year, and once I remember we even moved just across the road. We missed a fair few meals - and the meals we did have weren’t necessarily the most nutritious. So going to my nana’s house always meant stability and good food.
Each year, my family would gather around the table on Christmas Eve at my grandma’s place in Engadine (in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire) - sometimes there were almost 30 of us. My nana would be roasting in the kitchen, trying to cook a baked dinner like it was still winter in England, when it was roaring summer in Australia. We’d all sit at the table waiting, salivating, while plate after plate passed under our noses.
The rule in our house: ‘you don’t start eating until the eldest person starts eating’. So, of course, as kids, we tried to distract the adults and sneak morsels of deliciousness.
“ALTHOUGH MY FAMILY ISN’T RELIGIOUS, CHRISTMAS IS A PERIOD WHEN ALL OF US ARE ABLE TO COME HOME, CATCH UP, AND BOND…”
When I turned 11, I decided to stop eating meat. The reason? A dare. My friends and I had started a competition of who couldn’t eat meat for the longest time (FYI - I won).
This news horrified my mum. She was working full-time, in her mid-20s, and it was the 1990s - when vegetarianism was a lot less mainstream. My mum had no idea what a vegetarian diet would include. To make things easier for her, she asked me to keep eating white meat until I was 16.
Becoming vegetarian meant that my plate at Christmas was suddenly a lot less full than others, just vegetables and Yorkshire puddings.
For those who have never had the pleasure of being acquainted with a Yorkie pud - it’s a baked batter of eggs, flour and milk. It’s a little soft, yet crunchy, piece of my heritage. No full English roast is complete without a bit of pud.
All of a sudden, I saw an opportunity.
Remember in Harry Potter - how Dudley Dursley always had to get one more birthday present than he got the year before? That became me, but instead of presents - it was with Yorkshire puddings.
I started somewhere in the vague vicinity of a normal two to three per Christmas dinner, but at one point - the number had skyrocketed to reach 13. A Christmas Eve at my house was always punctuated with me with the Yorkie sweats, in pants with an elastic waistband.
The Yorkie pud story became more complicated a few years ago when I went vegan.
How do you make an eggy, milky pud with no egg or milk?!
This flavour conundrum is where a beautiful South Asian salt called kala namak (or Himalayan black salt) comes into play.
Kala namak is a sulphur salt and has that pungent egg-smell (so famously associated with sulfur hot springs) - and it adds an egg flavour to vegan food. I think that’s part of the beauty of such a multicultural world - a salt from South Asia helps me stay connected with my British heritage.
Christmas remains that special time for me to take a breath, to stop, and to return to stability. I’m currently a PhD student in Astrobiology at UNSW. My days are filled with Mars rovers and new education initiatives like Praxical. I travel so often and work so much, I barely get to see my family. Christmas remains that constant. We all trek home to my nana’s house and gather around the table, and I feel 11 again.
This year is even more special.
A few days after Christmas, my great-grandmother will turn 100 - she’s been eagerly awaiting her letter from the queen. Then - one day after her hundredth birthday, my mum’s partner, my dad, will turn 50.
Although he’s always been my dad in my eyes, and he and my mum have been together for almost 30 years - they never got married. My dad and I have recently begun the adult adoption process, so this year might be the first Christmas where the law will recognise what my heart has always known.
WHAT WE EAT IS MEANINGFUL
Yorkshire puddings have always been my favourite part of Christmas dinner. I remember loving the mystery associated with peering over my nana’s shoulder into the oven, to see if the puds rose or not. Eating Yorkie puds makes me think of the happiest times of my childhood - and this is my vegan take on the British classic!
DISH OF OUR HERITAGE
VEGAN YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS