Yes, you read that right! The strangest menu of the year...

If you're looking for inspiration for your Christmas lunch, how about Heston Blumenthal's 'Babe In A Manger' as an appetiser?

It's a communion wafer sprayed with the aroma of freshly-washed baby.

Heston devised the Babe In A Manger as part of his festive extravaganza dinner, to be shown on BBC2 on Wednesday 19 December. The menu also includes edible baubles filled with salmon mousse, reindeer milk ice-cream - frozen in liquid nitrogen - and goose fed on Paxo stuffing and essential oil of Christmas tree. The TV chef ventured to Paris to find a perfumier to create the essence of baby, which is actually derived from pistachio!

If your family's Christmas dinner is to be more traditional, take heed of the Food Standards Agency's warning and don't wash your turkey. Although eight out of ten people believe this is the right thing to do, it actually increases the risk of food poisoning.

In their survey this week, the FSA also found that 17% of people don't know how to tell if their turkey is cooked, so make sure you check that the juices run clear before serving. That way nobody will get more than they bargained for.

If all of that sounds like too much hard work, why not have the day off and take the whole family to a restaurant instead? According to a Which? report last week, it's almost as cheap to eat out now as to have Christmas dinner at home - and less washing up too!

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