Mince the meat, candy the peel: We should be as adventurous in cooking for Christmas as we are for the rest of the year, says Joanna Blythman

SUET, candied peel and currants are not ingredients that figure prominently on most cooks' shopping lists. We live and eat without them all year round and do not, in the main, miss them. But now it is time for the autumn flurry of pre- Christmas activity. We hit the shops on automatic pilot to buy the wherewithal to make the classics - Christmas cake, pudding, mincemeat.

But just because Christmas is a ritualistic festival, does it mean we must suspend our common sense and good judgement? The rest of the year, perfectly sensible cooks plan meals with an eye to the quality and pedigree of ingredients, overall balance and the impact on our stomachs. Yet at Christmas the same rules do not apply. We find ourselves cooking things we hardly ever cook. We choose from groaning shelves that we almost never visit. We become intimidated by the thought of those in the family who crave exactly the same formula year in, year out. Worst of all, we tend not to learn much from experience - the time-lapse of 12 months blurs the memory.

For years I used to observe tradition by attempting cake and pudding with the bargain bags of gritty, sulphured 'mixed dried fruit' which sit in mountainous stacks on supermarket home-baking shelves. Into the bowl would go those rubbery bits of vaguely citrus-tasting plastic that pose as mixed peel, and finally those balls of glue and sugar that are shamelessly sold as cherries. I produced what was, in retrospect, entirely predictable - a clump of chewy sweetness with absolutely nothing to recommend it.

Standard Christmas cookbooks display no awareness that the quality of foods bearing the same name may vary dramatically. Perhaps the experts are paralysed by tradition like the rest of us. Though recipes do vary, most have their roots in the past and, in our urge to maintain tradition, we tend to treat them too literally.

Survey the standard recipe texts: the problem is ingredients. 'A mixture of 1 1/2 lb of dried fruit' or 'mixed peel' or 'breadcrumbs' are some typically monolithic descriptions. Now, I have a hit list. Instantly distrust any recipe that includes 'glace' cherries, coloured or otherwise. They are always absolutely foul. You cannot, in my experience, buy good candied citrus peel. Making your own is surprisingly effortless and straightforward, as I discovered some years back from the recipe given by Deborah Madison in her book The Savoury Way (Bantam Press).

If, like many people, you are not keen on the usual granulated- sugar coating, you can store the peels in the fridge in the syrup in which you candied them. The syrup then makes a useful topping or flavouring for, say, trifle. You can also make sure that you candy organic fruit without the post-harvest chemical waxing.

The final item to be crossed off any thinking person's Christmas list is suet, that lardy amalgam of beef fat and flour which lies in the stomach like a lead weight, probably because it carries its own marble headstone health warning. Vegetable suet, to appease veggies, substitutes greasiness for lardiness. It is a perfect example of how so many vegetarian 'look- alikes' for animal foods quite simply miss the taste boat. You can make a perfectly successful pudding without any sort of suet anyway, as cookery writer Frances Bissell has ably demonstrated.

At the risk of provoking a flood of angry letters, much the same can be said of flour in puddings. The best ones use only bread, cake or biscuit crumbs.

Other recipes that do not actively lead you up the garden path are damned by sins of omission. What dried fruit is not improved by pre-soaking in some sort of alcohol? Nuts straight from the shell may be more laborious, but the taste is immensely better. But how many recipes point that out?

Using the standard texts as only a skeletal structure, if you transfer your allegiance to the wholefood shop you can buy many more variations on dried fruit: lexia or muscat raisins, hunza apricots, mission figs, Agen prunes, dried pears and mangoes, even pickled Japanese plums called umeboshi. Got a friend in the United States? Then get them to post you some real dried cherries.

For those concerned about pesticide residues or allergic reactions, you can select either organic or unsulphured fruits. Nuts need the same approach. If you traditionally use almonds, why not try some pecans, too? Is there a law against hazelnuts in Christmas cakes and puddings?

Ditto the booze element. All those tiny miniatures of brandy that appear in shops pre-Christmas suggest that lots of people religiously follow the recipe gospel. But the dregs of the weekend's Beaumes-de-Venise, that bottle of Moscatel that you brought back from holiday, last Hogmanay's malt, all these might be more interesting and practical.

When you start tinkering with traditional recipes, Christmas food takes on a Sorcerer's Apprentice-type appeal. You can almost get enthusiastic about it. Starting now, you track down an inspiring selection of fruits. Candy the citrus one autumnal evening after supper. At the same time, you can soak some French Agen prunes in armagnac or cognac in kilner jars. Come December, you can add them, chopped and plump, to a dark chocolate truffle mixture. The combination is fantastic.

Next, one wintry Sunday afternoon, install yourself in a warm kitchen and lay all the ingredients you have carefully selected out on the table, pre-soaked where appropriate, with a massive bowl and sturdy wooden spoon to hand. Radio 4 freaks will not be distracted by the background crackle of The Archers and Desert Island Discs. The creative thinking all happens in advance.

Expect assistance if you have children. Even the most uncivilised boys, prone to viewing the world upside-down from a climbing frame, will be drawn to the ritual. Then give yourself up to the undeniable pleasure of preparing really good food to look forward to at Christmas.