Recipe: Speculoos (and Santa)

I had my first mulled wine of the season last week, catching up with a friend who has a four year old daughter. Talk turned to Christmas, and how her daughter had loudly announced on the way home from playgroup that Santa couldn't be real because there'd been so many books written about him. Yes, at such early age, she'd clearly started to twig that something wasn't quite right about the thought of a chap dropping down the chimney. ("But surely the dog would bark and wake us up Mummy?")

My friend had, as most parents would, looked aghast, tried not to panic, desperately changed the subject, and decided to bring it up at another point. But how do you broach the subject with a precocious four year old who runs the risk of upsetting every other child in her class?

St Nicholas. That's what we came up with.

I first heard of Sinterklaas, or Saint Nicholas, when I came to Edinburgh and moved in with a Dutch friend. A 4th century Christian bishop, he was canonised for being an all round good egg and champion of the impoverished. He is remembered for leaving sweets in the shoes of poor children - and for his most famous exploit, when he threw three gold coin pouches down the chimney of a pauper, who could not afford the dowries for his daughters. One version of the tale tells that the girls had been washing their stockings, and left them to dry by the fire and that the money dropped inside...

A facial reconstruction of St Nicholas - source

His saint day - 6th December - is celebrated across many continental European countries. In the Netherlands, it's bigger than Christmas for a lot of young children, and is celebrated the night before. On the evening of the 5th December, families eat a traditional pea and bacon soup, play games and swap gifts with little rhymes for each recipient. Shoes are placed in front of fireplaces and windows in the hope that sweets will appear inside. On the morning the 6th, St Nicholas heads off back to Spain (where he, slightly randomly given his Greek heritage, apparently spends most of his time).

He's become a controversial character in the last few years - mostly because of his attendants, Swarte Piets. Black-faced children accompany Nicholas on his arrival into town. The Spanish connection and the curly black hair implies that his servants are Moors - which makes it slightly dodgy... but politics aside, it still strikes me as fascinating how a saint who died 1600 years ago became our modern day Santa. It's believed that he travelled over to America with the Dutch West India Company. Combined there with the English tradition of Father Christmas, a friendly Yule-tide visitor who celebrates with friends (St Nicholas never quite made it over the Channel), the modern day Santa Claus was established.

Anyway. Back to Sinterklaas.

Ever since I've known my Dutch friend, we've had a Sinterklaas celebration together. It's normally a couple of days late, as she travels home to see her family - but it's become the start of my festive season. I volunteered to do some baking for our gathering, and was handed her family recipe for Speculaas, or Speculoos, cookies. Similar to gingerbread, but with less of the ginger, and with more cloves and cardamom, they are a really delicious and slightly savoury soft biscuit. I used my friend's spice mix - but if you don't have all of those ingredients, I reckon they'd be just as delicious with mixed spice as it's really similar, only without the cardamom.

Speculoos
Makes around 20.

120g butter

100g dark brown sugar 

200g self raising flour

1 tsp salt

1 egg

2 tsp spice mix 

Cream together the sugar, butter, salt and spices.

Add the egg, slowly sift in the flour and mix into a sticky dough. 

Bring into a ball, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes. 

Preheat the oven to 170C. 

Roll out the dough on a clean, floured surface, handling as little as possible to keep it cold. Ideally you want it about 7mm thick (I know, I know). Cut into festive shapes, or triangles. 

Bake for approx 20 minutes on a non-stick or lined tray. When you take them out, they will seem very soft and possibly undercooked but they'll firm up a treat as they cool.

Best eaten warm while they're still soft in the middle. Perfect with mulled wine or hot chocolate. 

25th December, 1914.

It feels like October, the clock changes and Halloween were ages ago. The pumpkins, ghouls and wizards disappeared quite literally overnight, and shiny plastic tinsel and chocolate oranges took their places. We're now well into November, and for most of us there's only one payday left until Christmas.

It's the time of year when advent and advert are easily confused. 

I've seen a lot of bloggers singing the praises of the John Lewis advert this year. Some of their posts are probably sponsored, some not. JL adverts have become the "thing" now - the sign that the year's biggest shopping occasion is nearly upon us, and that we must frantically buy stuff to show our loved ones how much we care about them (my Scrooge-esque opinions are nothing new, I've mentioned my disdain for Christmas gifts before. It's another entry on the Why I'm Not A Lifestyle Blogger list). 

To say I was surprised by the Sainsbury's advert this year would be an understatement. No emphasis on bankrupting ourselves on a single meal - instead a simple, and incredibly poignant message. 

No one knows for certain how or why the Christmas Ceasefire happened. It seems to have been spontaneous, perhaps triggered by Germans decorating trees with candles (after all, the habit is German in origin) or singing hymns on Christmas Eve. Silent Night is the most likely to have bonded the troops, as it's one of only a small number of carols commonly sung in English, French and German. Hundreds of small breaks in the war spontaneously erupted.

Maybe it happened because the lads had a moment of realisation that really, regardless of who they were or why they were there, they were all missing their families and trying to make the best of a pretty dire situation. Maybe it's because they were all volunteers, who had signed up early under the impression it wouldn't last long. They were not yet made bitter by the brutality and propaganda that was yet to come. Both sides had thought that it would all be over by Christmas. 

'Over The Top' 1st Artist's Rifles at Marcoing, 30th December 1918, John Nash. (Imperial War Museums)

Christmas Day probably started in most places in a way typical to a ceasefire. In traditional battlefield combat (after all - World War I is often regarded as the turning point in warfare, when hand to hand fighting was overtaken by technology), ceasefires were often called to allow each side to safely collect their dead. 25th December 1914 started in the same way in many places. Anecdotal evidence tells of men from both British and German armies burying their men alongside each other just outside Lille. 

Burying those killed in the attack of 18th December. Imperial War Museum: Q50720

Most of the men wouldn't have spoken each other's language. Inevitably, exchange of rations and trinkets would have happened in lieu of conversation. Treats from home - jam, boiled sweets and chocolate from the British ration packs, vegetables from the Germans. The British packs were considered the "best", but undoubtedly after some folk had spent six months without a vegetable, a fresh carrot would have been worth swapping a bar of Cadbury's for. 

Men from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers with German soldiers, Boxing Day 1914. Imperial War Museum: HU 35801

Captain Sir Edward Hulse reported singsongs around campfires, which "ended up with 'Auld lang syne' which we all, English, Scots, Irish, Prussians, Wurttenbergers, etc, joined in. It was absolutely astounding, and if I had seen it on a cinematograph film I should have sworn that it was faked!" 

Makeshift football games cropped up - mostly as a kick-about between battalions on the same side, but again there's anecdotal evidence that Britain vs Germany matches took place. Sadly not the first example though, as many jokes claim. The rivalry had been alive and well since the first England vs Germany game in 1899. 

As darkness descended, flares went up, a signal that the fighting was to restart. 

Wire, Paul Nash. (Imperial War Museums)

The Christmas 1914 ceasefire was the only long break in fighting. A British press embargo was immediately arranged to stop any news getting back home, but it was broken after a week by the New York Times. The stories would have slowly got home in letters anyway. When public opinion began to turn against the war, and fears of refusals to fight increased, arrangements were made to prevent troops from fraternising with the enemy and to increase propaganda in the trenches themselves. But still - the sentiment remained on a small scale. Historian Tony Ashworth has described how the "live and let live" ethos developed in some areas, with an unofficial avoidance of attack during meal times. I find this incredibly poignant. A small act of rebellion, a small act of recognising that despite the fighting, they were all human.

"I wouldn't have missed that unique and weird Christmas Day for anything. ... I spotted a German officer, some sort of lieutenant I should think, and being a bit of a collector, I intimated to him that I had taken a fancy to some of his buttons. ... I brought out my wire clippers and, with a few deft snips, removed a couple of his buttons and put them in my pocket. I then gave him two of mine in exchange. ... The last I saw was one of my machine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently kneeling on the ground whilst the automatic clippers crept up the back of his neck." - Bruce Bairnsfather