Entertainment

Nigella Lawson reveals why she will not be cooking turkey this Christmas

The TV chef said it would feel ‘less sad’ making something else.
The TV chef said it would feel ‘less sad’ making something else. The TV chef said it would feel ‘less sad’ making something else.

Nigella Lawson will not cook a Christmas turkey this year “for the first time ever”.

The TV chef and food writer, who celebrated her 60th birthday in January, will instead be making pork.

Lawson told the BBC’s Newscast podcast that she felt following festive tradition while not having “a family Christmas” due to Covid-19 would make her “feel what’s missing”.

Many families will be unable to spend Christmas together after a new coronavirus variant led to London and parts of southern and eastern England being rushed into the new Tier 4 regime at the weekend.

Lawson said: “I actually – and I only made the decision a couple of days ago – for the first time ever, I am not going to do a turkey – and I always do. I’m doing pork.

“It’s not going to be a normal family Christmas, therefore I think I will feel less sad doing something that is just a lovely lunch, that takes in a few Christmas traditions from elsewhere that interest me, but (does) not… make me feel what’s missing.”

However, Lawson suggested others might want to hold on to tradition this Christmas.

She added: “I would have thought, for many people, the strange conditions under which we live will make them want to cleave to the traditions, and not add new and different things.”

The TV chef recently returned to screens with a new series, Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat, on BBC Two, also publishing an accompanying book.