Christmas: Christmas Dinner in the Twentieth Century

By the late nineteenth century, some cookery writers tentatively suggested alternatives for those who wanted something out of the ordinary. Although roast turkey remained a popular centerpiece, turkey farmers such as Horace Vose found that the Christmas market demanded much smaller birds than the Thanksgiving market. Food writers suggested that other meats might supplement or even supplant the American bird. Terhune, writing for a more affluent readership in House and Home (1889), recommended a “noble” saddle of venison in lieu of the “provincial” turkey that must appear on Thanksgiving. She wrote that Christmas turkey was required only if “your culinary conscience or the family appetite demand the sacrifice of the Bird of Plenty.” Other writers suggested steak, meatloaf, and veal curry. Even the somewhat conservative Good Housekeeping Institute by the late 1920s suggested crown roast of pork as an alternative to turkey.