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FOOD
SEASONAL OELIOAOIES
Christmas goodies in local delicatessens. Illustrated by Angela McKay.
EDINBURGH
For the best in loose chocolates. filled with cream and made in Belgium Maxwell and Kennedy Waverley Market (558 1519) offer the finest range and selection. Pralines. truffles. noisettes and liqueurs in dark. milk or white chocolate are £1 .95 a quarter. Turkish Delight 95p a quarter. though Thorntons 103/105 St James Centre (556 5612) and Princes Street have prettier Christmas boxes (25p extra) and truffles more cheaply at 99p a quarter. Their own handmade chocolates with cream are £1 .9921 quarter. though Belgian are generally acknowledged as being the best. From Thorntons also are chocolate Rolls Royces. 99p. and cheery red felt Santa Sacks. £1 .29.
whose contents include jelly mousse.
jelly fish and Santa face lolly pops.
For packaged chocolate. Jenners Food Hall Princes Street (225 2442) bulges with all the names that are fit to eat. They include Terry‘s (a madc-to-keep domed box painted with an 18th century idyll with York Minster in the background. £9.90 for 11b). Bendicks (plain assorted in big circular boxes £22.60 for 735 gm). Lindt. C(3te D‘Or and Tiffany‘s in opera-style red velvet and ribbon £6.54. Nastiuk's 165a Bruntsfield Place (229 7054) have a very wide range of bars of Swiss chocolate from about 68p and the nicest in free standing Father Christmases at 98p in red marzipan. One particularly unusual idea or stocking filler here is individual Roquefort cheese souffles by Glyngre at 79p.
At Jenners the red plastic fire engine for children. £2.65. with moveable white plastic ladder is more toy than sweet and contains a few fruit jellies inside its hinged body. Also mostly toy is Peter Pan‘s Chocolate Machine and Savings Bank. £3.65. For 2p it releases little bars ofCadbury‘s milk chocolate
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‘ ‘61 an while pocketing the money. so you save money by spending. Stoneground wholewheat wafers. slightly savoury (poppy seed. sunflower and celery) come in attractive slightly flowery tubes at £1.25 and Finest Filetted Bombay Duck from Subahdar (dried Bummaloe Fish which you soak. fry and crumble into curry) is very jolly in its bright yellow tube. £1 .45. There are Thursday Cottage Handmade preserves for diabetics. Blackberry and Apple. 99p and big red Kit Kat tins for picnics. packed full with 482-stick Kit Kats £3.99. though the chocolate snowballs. 75p. self-described as ‘a hollow novelty" have a rather emptier ring.
The well-known. opera-playing
Italian food specialists Valvona and
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Crolla 19 Elm Row (556 6066) have an impressive selection of luxury foods for Christmas and will be open longer hours from 8am—8pm every day except Sundays 1 1—24 Dec. Their traditional Italian Christmas cakes. Pancttone. are half the price ofanywhere else at £2.79 for 1000gm. Quite different from the English traditional English cakesor Scots black bun. these cakes have all the fruit but none of the richness and are light and spicy. Also traditional for Christmas in Italy is salt cod or Cacala. from £1 .99. which you soak. saute’ and eat on Christmas Eve. More extravagantly there are tiny tins of truffles from £7.59 (or fresh to order £36 per ounce!) and Russian caviar from £8.99 or (for bigger eggs)
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Beluga from £3.99. More economically there is their best-selling wine lvlontepuleiano
D‘Abruzzo. a fruity. purple grape wine at £2.49. Don‘t be confused by the ‘Bianchi‘ on the label which refers to the bottler and not to the colour. For drink like champagne. at halfthe price try their l’inot l)l Pinot. £3.89. which is dry. crisp and sparkling. They have a wide range of hampers; fill with your own choice: Port (Sandemans late-bottled vintage 1979) and Stilton. or just the hamper at £4. £6or £8. Strings of French garlic from Provence or onions .£ 1 .99. delivered by ( )nion Johnny. Marrons glace £3.95. Sienna Panfortc from £1 .99. and cheapest of anywhere French cafetie res. in gold or chrome from £24.99 or £17.39 respectively. Kinneils Victoria Street stock cafetieres in red plastic rather than metal at £13.50 (3 cup) or £19.75 (8 cup). Also at Valvontls are little ideas like oyster knives £1 .89 and. or walnuts in port £2. 16’. The very friendly staff. who offer a huge fund of knowledge about Italian food. also usefully recommend. and stock. two books. one on Italian cooking The Classic Italian (.‘ookbook. by Marcella l lazan £7.95. and one on Italian Wine. Bruno Roncarati‘s l'ivu l'im». £6.95. And if you want the luxury from Italy. try (’inghiale. or wild boar. which comes from the woods around Rome and is eaten as an antipasta with oil and lemon. Approx £10 for lle. or try it out more cheaply first in the wild boar sausages at £4.89 a jar.
'I‘heOId Leith Recipe Shop. Waverley Market sells traditional and reasonably priced Scottish baking in attractive cellophanc-wrapped packets (shortbread from 65p. Parliament cakes 65p and tiny coin-sized oatcakes £1 ) or preserves in (y-sided
jars— mint jelly 85por raisin sauce
£1 .45. It is all made by Woods in Leith and the emphasis is on quality
of ingredients. not packaging. Crabtree and Evelyn 4 l lanover Street
(226 2478) who obviously go to
enormous lengths and expense in their packaging. and pass on all the cost to the consumer. It is all done very prettily and cleverly with illustrations ranging from linglish
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