Subject: pudding in 1800 Britian

From: [email-masked] ([email-masked])
Date: 26 Sep 1993 00:42:42 -0400

I have been reading Patrick O"Brian's series of sea novels set in Nelson's
time (early 1800's).  Captain Jack Aubrey, in addition to capturing enemy
ships, eats a great deal and very often he eats a pudding.  These vary
from a spotted dog (his favorite) to a drowned baby, plum duff and figgy
dowdy.  Some seem like dessert, others like the meal and ingredients vary
though many are made with suet.  Does anyone know about pudding?

Thanks-
[email-masked]
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Nick Maclaren)
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1993 22:41:52 GMT

>though many are made with suet.  Does anyone know about pudding?

A pudding is anything made largely of farinaceous material and boiled
or steamed (often in a bag).  Hence the haggis is the Great Chieftain
o' the Pudding Race, according to Burns, though (of course) a haggis
is definitely not English!

Several of the ones you mention belong to the common family of flour
and suet mixtures with some flavouring, boiled in a bag (permeable -
e.g. thick muslin) or basin (impermeable, but with a permeable top)
until done.  They were and still are very common.

Others include steak and kidney pudding, which is like the pie but the
contents are wrapped in pastry and then steamed or boiled.  There may
even be some that do not include any farinaceous material, though I
don't know of any.

Nick Maclaren
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street,
Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
Email:  [email-masked]
Tel.:   +44 223 334761
Fax:    +44 223 334679

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From: [email-masked] (Diane Duane)
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 09:25:51 GMT

>though many are made with suet.  Does anyone know about pudding?

A bit.  A strongly recommended source for you:

ENGLISH PUDDINGS SWEET & SAVORY, Mary Norwalk, Sphere Books
UK, 1984, L2.95:  ISBN 0-7221-6471-8.  I think this is
still in print.  

"Pudding" means two things over here:  (a) a generic term
for dessert, sometimes shortened to "pud":  ("What's for
pud, then?").  (b) A steamed pudding, usually involving at
least flour and often suet, either steamed in a sealed
container ("pudding basin") or sometimes in a cloth (q.v.
concoctions like the Scots "cloutie pudding").  

Spotted Dog is not to be confused with Spotted Dick (which
is a suet pastry rolled around a filling of raisins and
sugar, also sometimes called Plum Bolster or Roly Poly or
Raisin Roly Poly).   

The recipe:

8 oz self-raising flour
Pinch of salt
4 oz shredded suet
1 oz sugar
8 oz currants or raisins
150 ml cold water

Stir together the flour, salt, sugar, suet and dried
fruit.  Mix to a firm dough with water.  Form into a
cylinder about 8 inches long, and put on a pudding cloth
that has been wrung out in boiling water and sprinkled
with flour.  Roll the pudding in the cloth and tie the ends
tightly, but leave room for expansion.  Put into a pan of
boiling water, cover, and boil for 2 hours, adding more
boiling water if necessary to prevent boiling dry.  Turn
the pudding onto a hot dish and serve with custard.

***

"Drowned baby" is probably one of the school or nursery
names for a blancmange, which (when badly or cheaply
made) tended to look more like dead flesh like anything
else.  (Urk.)   

***

Plum Duff (this is the Sussex variety:  there are probably
others): 

6 oz self-raising flour
3 oz shredded suet
4 oz currants
4 oz raisins
4 oz demerara (or other dark brown) sugar
Pinch of ground mixed spice (allspice will do)
About 150 ml milk

(The recipe notes here that "plum" was a generic term for
dried fruit, and "duff" was probably a corruption of
"dough".)

Mix together the flour, suet, currants, raisins, sugar and
spices.  Mix with the milk to make a stuff dough.  Wring
out a pudding cloth in boiling water and sprinkle one side
with a little flour.  Put the dough in the center of the
floured side and tie up like a football.  Drop into a pot
of boiling water, cover and boil for 1 1/2 hours, adding
more boiling water as necessary so that it doesn't boil
dry.  Unwrap carefully and serve with custard, or melted
redcurrant jelly. 

****

"Figgy Dowdy" *might* be figgy pudding.  There are several
kinds:  this is one of the more old-fashioned versions. 

2 cooking apples
1 lb dried figs
1 medium carrot
8 oz butter
4 oz dark brown sugar
6 oz whole wheat breadcrumbs (soft, not dried:  crumble up
whole-wheat bread) 
4 oz whole wheat flour
Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
2 eggs
2 tablespoons molasses

Peel and core the apples and cut them in pieces.  Put the
figs, apples and carrots through the fine blade of a
mincer (I would use the meat grinder attachment on my
Kenwood, or else just chop them up very fine).  Cream the
butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Work in the
breadcrumbs and flour, and then the minced fruit.  Put the
lemon rind and juice in a bowl with the eggs and molasses,
and mix well together.  Add to the pudding and beat well. 
If necessary, add a little milk;  the mixture should be
stiff.  Put into a large greased pudding basin, or two
smaller ones.  Cover with a piece of greased parchment
paper and kitchen foil, and tie securely.  (Good tight
rubber bands work as well.)  Put into a pan with enough
boiling water to come halfway up the basin.  Cover and
steam for 5 hours, adding more boiling water as necessary
to keep the pan from boiling dry.  This pudding may be
kept like Christmas pudding (i.e., for long periods in a
cool dry place).  

Note here:  one of the things you can now get from UK
kitchen suppliers are plastic or nonstick pudding basins
with snap-on, waterproof lids that do away with the need
for tying wrappers on.

My husband adds:  "There's a song, too."  It appears on
TREVOR CROZIER'S BROKEN CONSORT, and is called "Puddin". 
It lauds the fact that you don't need teeth to eat it: 
"there ain't no bones in puddin".   

**

There were also a lot of savory puddings:  usually
involving suet crusts wrapped around meat and gravy (the
steak and kidney pie is an adaptation of the earlier steak
and kidney pudding).  Sometimes vegetables found their way
in as well, usually potatoes (after the late 1700's) and
carrots or parsnips.  

Best!  D. 

    Diane E. Duane / Potter's Pasture / Kilbride / Wicklow / Ireland
      "A little science...a little magic...a little chicken soup."
      Internet:  [email-masked] / Compuserve: 73200,3112
   Formerly:  [email-masked]  (this address expires 1 Sep '93)

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From: [email-masked] (Henry Troup)
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1993 21:08:21 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] ([email-masked]) writes:
|> I have been reading Patrick O"Brian's series of sea novels set in Nelson's
|> time (early 1800's).  Captain Jack Aubrey, in addition to capturing enemy
|> ships, eats a great deal and very often he eats a pudding.  These vary
|> from a spotted dog (his favorite) to a drowned baby, plum duff and figgy
|> dowdy.  Some seem like dessert, others like the meal and ingredients vary
|> though many are made with suet.  Does anyone know about pudding?

We fed 200 people pudding on Saturday. It was a simple herb pudding, bread crumbs, eggs, flour, boiled for about two hours. It was served to accompany
roast pork.  Very little of it came back uneaten.

Pudding is a way of reprocessing bread. Mrs. Beaton (the facsimile 1st 
edition) is a good source of recipes.

Puddings areboiled or steamed, either in a mold or in a floured cloth.

What more do you want to know?

The herb pudding was light and fluffy in the test batch (which had no flour)
the production run had a little flour and was about like poultry stuffing.

-- 
Henry Troup - [email-masked] (Canada) - BNR owns but does not share my opinions
	   A former member of a religious para military organization

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From: [email-masked] (Nick Maclaren)
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 10:34:38 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (L.A.Z. Smith) writes:
|> This is interesting, since in modern-day America, "pudding" almost always
|> refers to a custard-like substance, made on the stovetop and chilled.
|> It's something like a mousse, but denser.

Sorry - I didn't make myself clear.  I was giving the traditional (i.e.
historical) meaning.  As Diane Duane said in an earlier posting, 'pudding'
is now often used exchangeably with 'dessert' in the UK.  Actually, it is a
little more complex:

The U (i.e. upper-class) term for the main sweet course is 'pudding' - the
terms 'dessert' and 'sweet' are decidedly non-U.  U speakers use 'dessert'
to refer to a course of fruit, nuts, sweets and so on (i.e. sweetmeats, or
what is called candy in North America).  Both U and non-U speakers
understand all three terms and, because it is easy for one U speaker to
recognise another and their dessert is less common served in non-U circles,
there is no confusion with the two meanings of 'dessert'.  Both U and non-U
speakers use 'sweet' to mean candy - 'candy' refers only to hard sweets made
of boiled sugar.

This comes to you from an inhabitant of John Major's classless society ....

Nick Maclaren

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From: [email-masked] (Jeff Stai)
Date: 29 Sep 1993 09:59:29 -0700

>    Diane E. Duane / Potter's Pasture / Kilbride / Wicklow / Ireland

Wow! I too am interested in Christmas puddings, mostly because I am
challenged to re-create old Great-Grandmother Reed's puddings! One
things I am confused about is the "hard sauce" that was served with the
pudding. Meine Frau insists that it was made with soft butter, brown
sugar, and whiskey, and was of a soft and smooth consistency. Kind of
like cake frosting. My sauce, on the other hand, came out gritty,
because the brown sugar did not dissolve in the butter.

So, my question to the Group Mind is:

1. How do I make the brown sugar lose its grit in the butter? Or,

2. How do I make a hard sauce with the desired consistency and flavor?
I suppose powdered sugar and molasses...?

3. Or might it have been some recipe that used something other than
brown sugar, but tasted like it (considering brown sugar is a "recent"
innovation)?

Thanks for the source, by the way!

jeff stai
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Nick Maclaren)
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 18:58:41 GMT

>brown sugar, but tasted like it (considering brown sugar is a "recent"

You were making something rather like rum butter and the answer is that
it remains gritty!

Hard sauce is now usually called brandy butter, and is butter and fine
sugar creamed together with brandy and other flavourings.  It is not
particularly smooth, either, unless you use icing sugar (powdered sugar).
See Jane Grigson's "English Food" and other books of traditional English
cooking (19th century to 20th).

Nick Maclaren

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From: [email-masked] (John Wexler)
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 08:41:41 GMT

In article <stai.749321842@oem13>, [email-masked] (Jeff Stai) writes:
|> Wow! I too am interested in Christmas puddings, mostly because I am
|> challenged to re-create old Great-Grandmother Reed's puddings! One
|> things I am confused about is the "hard sauce" that was served with the
|> pudding. Meine Frau insists that it was made with soft butter, brown
|> sugar, and whiskey, and was of a soft and smooth consistency. Kind of
|> like cake frosting. My sauce, on the other hand, came out gritty,
|> because the brown sugar did not dissolve in the butter.

It sounds as if you are making what is still very widely served with
Christmas pudding, namely brandy butter, except that you are using
whiskey.  Styles and recipes are variable, and there is no definitive
"historically authentic" version.  Brandy and rum (dark) are the spirits
most commonly used for this purpose.  Texture can vary from smooth to
slightly gritty, depending on what sugar you use.  Firmness varies from
"very thick cream" to solid butter.  The sugar does not dissolve in the
butter.  If your stuff is too gritty, try using finer-grained sugar.  I
use icing sugar (white frosting sugar) with brandy or fine-grained pale
"soft brown sugar" with rum. 

The fun in making this stuff is to incorporate the maximum quantity of
spirit into the sauce without having it "curdle" and separate.  Rather
like making mayonnaise or hollandaise.  The fun in serving it is to let
the children and the cat have some.  This is, of course, irresponsible
and abusive.  You will naturally try to remain sober and sensible
throughout your Christmas dinner so as to avoid the temptation.

|> 1. How do I make the brown sugar lose its grit in the butter? Or,
You don't.  Use a finer sugar, or grind the sugar to dust in a
liquidiser before you start.  Or enjoy the slightly sandy texture.

|> 2. How do I make a hard sauce with the desired consistency and flavor?
|> I suppose powdered sugar and molasses...?
No, no, not the molasses!  In any case, I don't know for sure that hard
sauce is the same as the stuff I am writing about.

|> 3. Or might it have been some recipe that used something other than
|> brown sugar, but tasted like it (considering brown sugar is a "recent"
|> innovation)?
I think white sugar is the recent invention.  Old-fashioned sugar, and
in particular loaf sugar, probably had plenty of "brown" flavour.

    John Wexler
    Edinburgh

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From: [email-masked] (Andy McClelland)
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1993 10:14:37 GMT

>brown sugar, but tasted like it (considering brown sugar is a "recent"

I make Brandy Butter to go with Christmas Pud, but it could equally be
Rum or Whiskey Butter. I use 50/50 icing sugar and soft brown sugar and
enjoy the slight "grittiness".

For no grit use just icing sugar, for reduced grit use the spirit to
dissolve the brown sugar.

Experiment and enjoy

Andy McClelland
"Old enough to know better, young enough not to care." - me, 1979 (still true)
Disclaimer: These are not my company's opinions, some of them are not even mine!
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