Christmas Food at Eddrachilles
The kitchen smells of spices and citrus, butter and sweetness. Across the country, in households where Christmas is celebrated, fruit is being weighed, pastry rolled, vegetables prepped, turkeys fetched home. The culinary work of Christmas has begun in earnest.
Here at Eddrachilles Hotel, now quiet in its winter closure but soon to come alive again as family arrive for Christmas, as we prepare our own midwinter feast, our thoughts turn — as they often do in this old house — to those who ate here before us.
Most of this building began life as the Eddrachillis parish manse in the early in the 1800s. The parish itself was formed in 1724. But the rhythms of food, winter and hospitality on this ground reach further back, shaped by subsistence, faith and the traditions of Highland life.
Christmas, as we know it today, was not always openly celebrated in Scotland. Following the Scottish Reformation 1560, its observance was discouraged and for long periods effectively suppressed, including legislation in 1640 banning Christmas by the Scottish Parliament. For generations, 25 December passed much like any other winter day, its meaning absorbed into the wider season rather than marked by a single feast.
Yet people still ate. They still gathered. And food — modest or generous — continued to tell a story.
“Different tables. Different freedoms. The same midwinter need for light, warmth and food that comforts.”
The new-built manse: early 18th century to the 1820s
In the decades before and during the establishment of the manse at Badcall, most people in the parish of Eddrachillis lived as crofter-fisher families, their winter diet shaped by what could be grown, stored, dried or salted.
With Christmas officially discouraged, there was no expectation of a special feast. Midwinter food looked much like the rest of winter food, though it might be made a little richer when circumstances allowed. Oats were central: porridge, brose, bannocks. kale and root vegetables filled broths and pots. Salt herring and locally caught fish were reliable sources of protein. When a household could manage it, meat from a winter slaughter animal was carefully shared over days.
Sweetness was rare. When it appeared, it came in oat-based puddings enriched with dried fruit, treacle or syrup — sustaining, warming dishes made from what was to hand. That said, the Clootie Dumpling, a dried fruit pudding boiled in a cloth, traces back in written recipes to the 1750s. It was probably associated more with the New Year or for weddings than Christmas.
Culinary celebration, where it existed, was quiet and domestic, shaped by endurance and community.
The thriving manse: 1820s to early 1840s
The establishment of the manse brought a new kind of household to Badcall Bay. Ministers’ homes sat slightly apart from crofting life — not wealthy, but secure; not lavish, but supplied through regular income and wider trade networks.
Often the extended household comprised the minister and his family, an assistant minister, a grieve to manage the glebe lands (living in an adjacent building), and servants housed in quarters above the stalls (now one part of the Glebe Kitchen). This was a permanent working home, not a summer residence for the aristocracy or the well-to-do.
By this time, attitudes to Christmas in Scotland were beginning to soften, though observance remained restrained, particularly in Presbyterian households. The table might quietly reflect the season without drawing attention to it.
Food in more wealthy Scottish households could include a roast goose or a joint of beef or mutton; richer baking was emerging using imported sugar and spices; dried fruits; suet puddings; and special cakes kept for visitors. Tea, increasingly important as a marker of hospitality, was ready for callers. It is a tradition we quietly maintain in the hotel today, with complimentary trays of tea and coffee offered to guests throughout their stay.
Yet this was also a period of profound upheaval. Estate change, clearance pressures and emigration were reshaping the parish around the manse walls. For those resident in the manse, theological debate was mounting and an evangelical movement was growing especially within the Highlands. While the minister’s household could set a modest “proper table”, many parishioners were enduring loss and uncertainty. Potato blight and famine drove many to “volunteer” to be cleared to the colonies.
1843 to early 20th century: change and tradition
As the nineteenth century progressed, Christmas slowly re-entered Scottish domestic life. By the later Victorian period, in more urban areas and well connected villages, festive customs were becoming more familiar, though often observed with restraint rather than extravagance and by no means through all parishes.
The manse at Badcall Bay, in common with many across Scotland, faced deep turmoil. The minister, Rev George Tulloch, and virtually all parishioners moved to Free Church in the Great Disruption of 1843. The Church of Scotland retained a series new ministers to lead the parish of Eddrachillis in the following decades as it was not initially certain that the split would be permanent. The parish of Eddrachillis had a very much reduced congregation, only four families remaining with the established church. Against this, domestic routines continued, and perhaps the manse table became more recognisably seasonal: mince pies, preserved fruits and special teas. With regular steamers in the bay bringing passengers and goods, ingredients will have become more varied here in the NW Highlands if not universally affordable.
Beyond the manse, crofting households continued to mark midwinter in their own way — sometimes with a shared animal, sometimes with little more than an enriched broth and a treasured clootie pudding. While there was a growing sense that Christmas could once again be acknowledged, it was also not widely encouraged in rural Scotland. Hogmanay retained its central place in Scottish winter life. Free of religious controversy, it remained a moment for hospitality, visiting and generosity, carrying many of the customs that elsewhere belonged to Christmas.
Into the 20th century: no longer a manse
By the early 1900, the manse was finally moving out of Church usage and into private leases. It was listed as available to purchase but the start of the First World War stopped any progress in that direction. Christmas across the Highlands was becoming closer to modern expectations, though always shaped by means.. Finally in 1958 the law was formally changed and Christmas was finally no longer “banned” in Scotland.
Shop-bought ingredients soon supplemented home produce in many Scottish households, although given the remote nature of this parish, it is likely that was slower to establish here. Festive baking gradually became a shared cultural language. . Poultry as a central dish appeared more often. Yet even then, the heart of the season remained warmth, welcome and enough to share. The balance between celebrations at Christmas and Hogmanay become more equitable.
And now
This weekend, as kitchens across Britain fill with the purposeful work of Christmas — the measuring and mixing, the careful timing, the satisfaction of tasks completed — we do so with an abundance that would have astonished earlier generations here.
At Eddrachilles, this building, this home, has always been about shelter, sustenance and gathering, whether Christmas was openly celebrated or quietly folded into winter. The work we do now in preparation for the feast connects us to every cook who has stood in these rooms, making something special from what they had.
Different tables. Different freedoms. The same midwinter need for light, warmth and food that comforts.
In our Christmas preparations today, we are honoured to take our place in a long, quiet line of cooks — mindful of those who cooked here before us, and grateful for the privilege of continuing the story.
To everyone in their kitchens this week, adding their own chapter to the long story of midwinter hospitality: happy cooking, and our warmest wishes for the most joyful of festive celebrations, from our home to yours.
