Tim Hayward’s kitchen nightmare before Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve and, by tradition, a time for tall stories. So refill your glasses, draw your chair over here by the fire and its flickering light, and I shall tell you a Christmas tale that will chill your marrow.

It was many years ago, when I was still a young and enthusiastic cook. Back then, I doubtless called myself a “foodie”. They were glorious times, when celebrity chefs still actually cooked, when fermenting was to be avoided and before anyone sitting in a restaurant had heard the words: “If I can explain. We are a Small Plate Concept. The food will come out in the order the kitchen cooks it.” Aaaah. I grow misty-eyed, just thinking about it. In those years, we could afford flats big enough to have a dining table, and sometimes we’d invite friends round.

It was a cold, coal-black Christmas, and I wanted to warm my friends with hospitality, to create a meal that would live long in their memories. The main course was to be a great fish, but I pored over my cookery books in search of a worthy starter. I had recently happened upon Richard Olney, an expat American who lived in France most of his life, writing precise recipes for provincial French dishes. The most legendary recipe in his book Simple French Food (approximately 33 per cent incorrectly titled) was for Queue de Boeuf Farcie Braisée and it was this that I chose. It’s supposed to serve four, but he notes leftovers could be packed into “an oval cocotte”, coated with the sauce and served cold. A “sort of terrine” and a witty and elegant starter.

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. Olney begins, “The preparation is relatively long, requiring a couple of hours’ preliminary work and, in all, some six hours’ attention on the following day, the last two of which should be more or less undivided.” (Yes, back then, we were prepared to be talked to like that.) So I began, days in advance.

Olney only demands you bone the largest six joints so, arriving home from work, I laid the tail out on the table and sharpened my smallest knife. Two hours later, I was a couple of joints in, but it is the nature of a tail that it tapers toward the tip, so things would not get easier. I opened the bottle of mid-quality Côtes du Rhône that I’d intended for the marinade and looked out a scalpel from my toolbox.

Midnight found me hunched over the last bone. The wine, gone. Some of the blood on the table came from the oxtail. I was wearing a head torch, a thousand-yard stare and twitching like a man who’d just cleared out an enemy tunnel network, armed only with, well, red wine and a scalpel. In front of me were six naked vertebrae and a rough quadrilateral of bruised, slashed, pierced and dishonoured flesh — the sort of thing Hannibal Lecter might use as a mask. I opened another bottle for the marinade. Then another because there’s no other way to sleep after five hours of surgery.

The next day, I dug the marrow from the chilled bones with the tip of a filleting knife, removing the end of my thumb. I bandaged it elaborately while I transformed the tail tip, bones, vegetables and marinade into a poaching stock and assembled the stuffing. Breadcrumbs, minced beef, truffles and the bone marrow. That evening, once again fogged with drink, I formed the farce into a sausage, wrapped the meat around it and sutured it closed — which would have been OK if I hadn’t sewn the bloody thing to my thumb. In the early hours, I woke to my only momentary flash of doubt. It was little wonder that the last time anyone tried anything like this, they’d buried it under a pyramid in Giza.

I braised it through a hangover that could have slain a fighting bull, reduced the braise to glaze, packed the lot into the “small oval cocotte” and chilled it. That night, I bore it into the dining room with the pride of a new father and nothing could undermine the thrill of turning it out and cutting perfect slices. Nothing. Not even my friends, the politest and kindest of whom called it “A Jellied Turd”, for it was, I cannot deny it, inedible.

I remind myself of Olney’s Oxtail every Christmas Eve, as I’m getting things ready for the big day. I check the wines, chosen for their harmony with the meal and the individual tastes of the guests. I look at the cheeses I’ve chosen, gently coming to temperature. I look at the bird, broad-chested star of the show, that’s basically been through a month-long casting process and, alongside, the gravy I’ve been working on for two weeks. All favourites are covered. Everyone will be delighted. I will have put in hours, days of work, effort and care . . . but nobody will give a toss.

I do not know if Eliot was any good in the kitchen, but when he wrote, “The journey, not the destination matters . . . ”, he spoke for all cooks, particularly at Christmas. We revel in creating the last significant feast in our peculiarly joyless culture. Our friends and family, the non-foodie “civilians” . . . they try to care but, when you’re rationalising your particular choice of potato-roasting fat for the third, Madeira-fuelled time, their eyes will inevitably glaze over. All they want is a great meal, good company and, what they still insist on referring to as, “all the trimmings”.

My friends, we cooks are lucky. My struggle with The Cursed Tail of Olney brought me uncomplicated joy — my only mistake was serving it — but also a deeper understanding. Tomorrow we can all look across the table at all those people we’ve made happy. We can check that they’re thoroughly enjoying the destination, then we rest easy, knowing that the journey was our gift to ourselves.