The Perfect Christmas

This evening we watched Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Christmas on BBC2. Normally I love watching Heston - the ‘culinary alchemist’ - with his very male cooking; it’s all gadgets, industrial equipment, perfectionism, and lots of lovely rich butter. And he gets to use liquid nitrogen!!

However this evening’s episode left a bitter aftertaste. One of his first comments was about his starter - apparently there are three vital elements to a nativity play: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. We heard all about the ‘three kings’ travelling through Oman where they probably picked up their frankincense. And who were they for? ‘The newborn baby’ - not once in the whole programme did I hear the name ‘Jesus’.

Now, I know that it isn’t a Christian programme - Heston’s comments about his perfect Christmas, which involves roaring fires, the smell of Christmas trees, roast goose and so on, reveal the total secularisation of Christmas into something sentimental, an excuse for the family to eat a slap-up meal in front of a roaring fire - but to talk about Christmas, including the nativity story, without mentioning Jesus’ name, is quite something.

But that wasn’t the worst part. He managed to come up with something tasteless at best, at worst extremely offensive. He served communion wafers dipped in something that smelled of babies. I have a high tolerance level - I am not offended by The Life of Brian, for example - but that really jarred with me. Using communion wafers in a Christmas meal is crass and, I think, offensive.

Of course, if anyone complains, the media will probably make them out to be fundamentalists who can’t take a good joke. However, taking one of the central acts of the Christian faith and turning it into a starter for your Christmas meal, is not a good joke.