If you have any of these items in your Christmas dinner you are a literal villain

Rate my plate can be harrowing at the best of times, but there’s something about a Christmas dinner that just inspires a specific kind of rage in me. There is a very clear line in terms of what is normal to have on your plate, and what is borderline freakish behaviour. However, people continually try to cross this line and it’s time that it stopped. I cannot and will not behold another picture of a Christmas dinner plate with mashed potato, macaroni cheese, or – at worst – a pie on it. 2020 has been rough so I’d really appreciate it if you sacrilegious bread sauce eating bozos didn’t make it any worse by posting a picture of this. No, even further, I’d rather you just didn’t consume it. I can’t sleep at night knowing that the Christmas dinner being slowly eroded by their stomach acid might involve… god I don’t even want to say it… sweetcorn.

So now, once and for all, I’m setting the record straight. If you have any of these items on your plate during the hours of 12-7pm on the 25th December you are henceforth sentenced to life in prison because you sir, are a villain.

Any potatoes other than roasted

I don’t want to upset you, but I’ve seen boiled potatoes on a Christmas dinner plate before. I know, I know. I’m still haunted by it. That’s like a culinary version of putting some dentures on a plate. It’s sad, wet, and insipid.

What’s more likely to be observed is a pile of mashed potatoes on a plate, which I still think is entirely wrong. I stan mash as hard as the next man, but in a Christmas dinner? You’re having a laugh. It’s the wrong texture. The wrong aesthetic. The wrong vibe. Equally, it conjures up visions of dentures. Don’t ask me why I’ve got so into this denture comparison I just have.

Boiled carrots

No. Carrots are to be glazed and roasted not moist and floppy like sad little orange disappointments. Take them back where they came from and then bring me some fucking parsnips. God, I love a good snip.

Mac and cheese

Macaroni cheese with a roast? Are you MENTAL? This is a bigger offence to the Brits and Italians than when Molly-Mae said that Italian food was rank on her IG story this summer. Don’t fucking do it to yourself! It’s not right. I understand if you didn’t have cauliflower for the cauli cheese but honestly you should have just gone without, rather than offend everyone with a pasta related replacement. Pasta and roast dinners should not, in any way, interact.

Any cold meats

Look I don’t police what meats people put on their Christmas plates as long as that meat is hot and cooked through. But cold meats? Cold pork with hot turkey? Cold roast beef? Come off it man. Don’t go messing around with the temperatures this isn’t a roulette of hot and cold flavours. I don’t want to chew around my forkload and uncover a pocket of cold meat with my tongue amongst warm stuffing and gravy, it just isn’t right.

Bread sauce

Don’t really understand what it is and don’t want to. That weird gloop shouldn’t be ruining anyone’s lovely roast.

Peas

They just aren’t a Christmassy vegetable? There are so many other greens – namely, sprouts, like what are you so scared of? Just eat a damn sprout – that you could have picked and you go for…peas? This is the equivalent of having chicken dippers instead of turkey for your meat component. Childish and embarrassing.

Asparagus

Calm down Jamie Oliver there’s no need for that.

Sweetcorn

Makes me think of wet sweetcorn from a tin and honestly just fucks with the hot/cold balance of the whole meal. Also definitely the choice of someone who has forgone sprouts. Grow up. Eat a sprout.

Hummus

This is a real thing that someone I spoke to recently has with their roast dinner. I didn’t continue the conversation on long enough, for moral reasons, to ask what they put the hummus with or dip into it, but it’s an abomination. It’s taken me this long to reference that Peep Shop scene but I’m sorry… hummus is NOT traditional.

Just plain sausages

Did you forget the bacon? Did you rush out of the supermarket in a Christmas panic and leave the bacon sitting on the till like poor little Kevin in Home Alone? Is that what you did? Because that’s the only acceptable reasoning behind this. And even then, if I was forced to eat a plain sausage while scoffing down my roast I think I’d have to do it in intervals, leaving a few breaks for me to stop and cry. If it’s not a pig in a blanket I’m not having it. What a cold, uncosy pig. Why would someone do that to him?

(I see the obvious point here about killing pigs in the first place and how that is objectively definitely a lot worse than eating a sausage without a blanket but to be honest it’s Christmas and if I want to make my silly little jokes and wear my silly little cracker hat I will.)

Ketchup

Piss off. Not in my house!!!!! This should be a criminal offence punishable by law. The long arm of the condiment law. If I brought someone over from Christmas and they asked me for ketchup when we all sat down for dinner, I think I’d just pretend to not hear them until they had repeated themselves three or more times and felt too embarrassed to do it again. And so they should. Feel that shame. Wallow in it. Bathe in it like you bathe your Christmas dinner in that disgusting red sauce like it’s meant to be there. Why, God why do you think that makes sense? What does it even go with? Surely it mixes with the gravy and becomes a watered down mess of red and brown juices? When Christ gave bread as his body and wine as his blood I think he envisioned the OPPOSITE of that holy process being the combined consumption of ketchup and gravy. It’s literally sinning.

Overly fancy veg like butternut squash, celeriac mash or kale

Alright Nigella I get that you’re trying to impress people here but there’s a time and a place. This isn’t a fucking dinner party in The Crown this is Christmas dinner and I’d really just like some roast potatoes and green beans, thanks.

A pie

Look I get that you’re Northern but this is a step too far.

Cauliflower cheese that still has the leaves attached

I’m mainly including this in the hope that my mum sees and stops doing it. Mum it’s not okay I can’t bear it anymore. It tastes like an allotment looks.

Horseradish or mustard

This is just the actions of someone trying to act like a big man and I won’t stand for it. Sit down, get a spoon and eat your cranberry sauce like the rest of us. Naked and straight from the jar.

I’m kidding.

Or am I?

Fish of any kind at any point in any shape or form

Keep your filthy seafood off of my plate!!!!!!!!!! Even Poseidon would be ashamed.

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