Simply having a Meat Free Christmastime Paul and family on the cover of ‘The Dish’ Sunday Times Food

The McCartney family share their new festive traditions. Vegetarian Christmas menu ideas and recipes from the McCartneys.

The table’s set, the candles are twinkling and the wine has been poured. But at the McCartney Christmas gathering, things are a little different. Although the table is groaning with food, the centrepiece is not a turkey, but a burnished pastry parcel packed with vegetables. The family have been vegetarians since Sir Paul’s late wife, Linda, stopped cooking meat back in the 1970s.

Paul and daughters Mary and Stella want to share their Christmas traditions and, as with most family get-togethers, the conversation is warm, wide-ranging and at times rowdy. “I feel like I’m on Question Time here,” Paul says at one point, as his daughters simultaneously talk about their mother’s food legacy.