But for those who aren't...did you know you can prolong the leftovers 'experience', or have it again at any point you wish during the year, with a tin of Turkey, Ham and Cranberry Soup from the good people at John Lusty?
You haven't heard of John Lusty? Shame on you - for over 150 years the John Lusty brand has been synonymous with high quality, fine foods. John Lusty has now teamed up with David Chambers, Emeritus Academician, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts, to enhance its famous range of soups. Formerly head chef at both the Oak Room and Rules Restaurant n London, David has used his culinary expertise in combining traditional recipes and the very best ingredients, to create a truly inspired range of intensely flavoured soups, stocks and consommés.
OK, I'll admit, I just copied that entire paragraph off the label. I'd never heard of them either. Perhaps that's as they're clearly quite a high-end brand, which I've never seen in any of the supermarkets; this tin came from the rather posh food shop Partridges in Chelsea. It was reduced. John Lusty's website tells me that their version of Royal Game soup actually contains grouse as well as venison and pheasant - far posher than the rather more budget-friendly Baxters' version I tried last year.
Had I been paying proper attention to the label rather than sniggering at the brand name (Lusty! Teehee!), I would have read that they recommend you shake the tin well before opening. I neglected to do so, hence there was a bit of a thicker, slightly fatty and grainy sludge around the rim of the can which presumably would have been dispersed through the soup if shaken. Never mind - on heating it all melted down into the soup anyway.
The soup was somewhat thicker and much deeper in colour than I was expecting, though that was probably as the turkey soup I have had has always been more of a thin, translucent broth, made from boiling up the carcass of the bird, with shredded pieces of the remaining meat and a few vegetables in it to bulk it out a bit. There were no nice chunks of turkey or ham here, just what seemed to be a rather small quantity of little scraps, though I think in fact it was less a case of John Lusty being parsimonious with the meat and more that the ingredients had been pureed up fairly well, giving a much thicker soup.
It actually was quite intensely flavoured, as the label had promised, with a good hearty body from the turkey, and a rich, meaty note from the ham, but overall quite salty. This was offset by the noticeably (though not unpleasantly) sharp, slightly bitter tang of the cranberries - which unusually were listed in the ingredients as 'cranberry juice' - hopefully made from fresh cranberries rather than one of those sweetened, watered-down cranberry juice drinks. But this is John Lusty, of course, so I doubt such a beverage would meet his or David Chambers' exacting standards.
But what to serve with the soup? The label suggested "a light scattering of chopped parsley" - nice, no doubt, but I felt something rather more substantial was called for. I always enjoy the crunch of a crouton, but they're not very Christmassy, are they? How about, instead, some Roast Turkey and Stuffing flavour crisps - another 'leftover' from Tesco's Christmas stocks, which had gone through various reductions from their original price of £1.59 to just EIGHT PENCE by the time I saw them.
As these were from Tesco's Finest* range, they had been typically elaborate in their description of them, though not particularly consistent - on the front of the pack, they were 'Free Range Roasted Norfolk Turkey with Herb and Onion Stuffing' flavour crisps (limited edition and hand-cooked, naturally), but on the back in the ingredients list, this had become 'Roast Turkey, Stuffing and Onion Gravy' flavouring. Among other things, the flavouring contains 'herbs' and ''onion powder' (and indeed there was a certain non-descript herbiness to them, and a strong hit of onion) as well as 'Norfolk Bronze Turkey Extract'. I don't really want to know how they extracted this flavour, or where exactly from on the bird. I'm not sure I would even have said "turkey" had I tried these in a blind tasting, let alone that it had been a free range bird. But they provided a nice bit of crunch in contrast to the soup, which I enjoyed on the whole, and it's nice to know that your crisp flavouring had a decent life, isn't it?
But I have, once again, digressed somewhat. This blog is all about tins, not crisps, and Christmas is so long gone I can barely remember it. So it's back to a normal service from now - this, I promise, has been the absolute last time I will mention the 'C-word', so to speak. Until it all comes round again, that is, in what will probably seem like no time at all...
*[misleading asterisk]
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