Today's Christmas turkey comes oven ready, frozen or pre-packed, but the celebrations of yesteryear were very different, involving a great deal more in time and effort.

Indeed, the turkey of today is a fairly new tradition', a goose being the bird' of Christmas past, with the fat being carefully kept sometimes to rub on the chest to combat colds and coughs.

Cooks of 200 years ago were advised how to roast a green goose "When your goose is ready dressed (they had to pluck and draw the goose), put in a good lump of butter, spit it, lay it down, singe it well, dust with flour, baste it well with fresh butter, baste it well three or four times with cold butter and it will make the flesh much better than if you baste it out of the dripping pan.

"If it is a large one, it will take three-quarters of an hour to roast it. When you think it is enough, dredge it with flour, baste it till it is a fine froth and your goose a nice brown, and dish it up with a little brown gravy under it, garnished with a crust of bread grated round the edge of your dish."

A sauce made with coddled gooseberries is also recommended.

Then 60 years later a housekeepers' book gave a recipe for a rich plum cake: "One pound of fresh butter, 12 eggs, a quart of flour, a pound of moist sugar, a half-pound of almonds and a half-pound of candied peel. The cake is made in the traditional way, advising that the mixture must be beaten by hand with the addition of each ingredient."

The cost of a plum pudding at the time was 2s 6d (12p), but John Bull's Own' pudding would cost you 7s 6d.

To each add suet, moist sugar, currants, raisins, sultana raisins, mixed candied peel, half-pound of breadcrumbs and flour, a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of mixed spice, eight eggs and a quarter of a pint of brandy boil for 13 hours.

No oven temperatures are given and timing are very vague - remember these were the days of open fires and later of coal-fired ranges! A menu of around the turn of the century gives three special menus for Christmas dinners: chicken soup, fried soles, anchovy sauce, jugged hare, redcurrant jelly, roast sirloin of beef, horseradish sauce, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables, plump pudding, brandy sauce, vanilla custard and mince pies.

Other alternatives include roast goose and here we see the first sign of roast turkey. In none are there fewer than six or seven courses and a French menu includes 15 different dishes! But of course the lady of the house merely had to order and the below stairs staff produced. Not so for the poorer households! Those families might see meat on their tables for the only time at Christmas if they were lucky! The advent of two wars changed it all by 1950, women were cooking their own dinners with much more modern cooking equipment and recipes were much simplified and more precise.

Turkey with chestnuts meets modern tastes one turkey 2-3lbs chestnuts, one to 1lb of sausage meat or veal forcemeat three or four slices of bacon a half-pint of stock one pint of good gravy or brown sauce, 2oz butter one egg cream or milk salt and pepper fat for basting.

1. Slit the skins of the chestnuts and boil them for about 15 minutes then remove both skins.

2. Replace in stewpan, add stock, cover closely and simmer gently for an hour.

3. Then rub them through a fine sieve, add the butter, egg, salt and pepper and if the puree appears a little dry, moisten with milk or cream.

4. Prepare and truss the turkey, stuff the crop with sausage meat or veal force and fill the body with chestnut puree.

5. Skewer the bacon on the breast, baste well with hot fat, and roast in a moderate oven for one and three quarter to two and a half hours, according to size.