Our Christmas dinner feels like it's been around forever, but in fact much of it is a surprisingly recent invention.
Jimmy Doherty tries to find out where the food on our Christmas plate comes from historically, and how it has evolved in the age of mass production.
Jimmy has spent months growing and making his own traditional dinner from scratch - to discover if it tastes better than the modern turkey and trimmings provided by the giant supermarket farms and factories.
Jimmy's 1845 recipe for Christmas pudding, with silver trinkets and cow stomach, may have matured for months before being served, but will it taste better than a microwaveable modern pud?
And can he nurse his knobbly heritage variety vegetables (potatoes, sprouts and carrots) through the attentions of numerous farm pests just to compete with their washed, graded and uniform counterparts from the supermarkets?
Jimmy's best mate Jamie Oliver helps decide which Christmas dinner should be declared the winner.
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Jimmy's Grow Your Own Christmas Dinner
Mon 12 Dec 2011
Our Christmas dinner feels like it's been around forever, but in fact much of it is a surprisingly recent invention.
- This episode has subtitles available.
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