For the last decade or more, Christmas Day at the Poynter household has had a special treat to follow it, Boxing Day Pie. Our pie is a combination of family bonding, tradition, and yummy eating.
So, what is Boxing Day Pie? We take everything, well almost everything, left unserved from Christmas Day dinner and we put it in a pie! This year the pie had a short-crust base and a puff pastry top. Inside the pie we had, turkey, pigs in blankets (sausages wrapped in bacon), carrots, brussel sprouts, roasted parsnips, stuffing, potatoes, gravy and probably some things I can’t recall.
Why is the pie so great? Well firstly, the things going into the pie all taste good. They taste good for two reasons, a) they were good enough to serve on the plate of what for us is the most important meal of the year; b) they are loaded with all the fat, salt, and flavour used to cook the Christmas Dinner – remember, I didn’t say it was healthy, just really tasty.
However, the pie is more than just a taste experience, it is a family experience. When we are buying the food for Christmas Day we know that we can buy a little bit more than we need, without as much temptation to serve too much on the day – there is no temptation to try an eat everything on Christmas Day as we now that not eating things leads to a great pie. As we are tidying away the Christmas Dinner we are discussing which items will go in the pie (stuffing yes, cranberry jelly no, mashed potatoes no, roast potatoes yes).
On Boxing Day (or this year the 28th) we share up the tasks, making the crust, chopping things, making some more gravy, talking about the pie, cooking the pie, and then as a family sitting down again to eat a great pie, and being a family. This ritual probably makes the pie taste even better, there is plenty of evidence that rituals can make the taste of food even better, see Psychology Today post here.
We tend to make our pie in a very large lasagne dish, with pastry base and top, but try it, make yours the way you want to.