Laura Watkins
! p u t i r i St THE WONDERS OF TRADITION
‘Stir-up Sunday’ isn’t an annual day for everyone to reveal destructive secrets and unload unwanted opinions, although perhaps there should be a day for that! ‘Stir-up Sunday’ is the last Sunday before the Advent, and gained its name from the first words of the Book of Common Prayer, “Stir up, we beseech thee”. The reason we’re writing about ‘Stirup Sunday’, is because it’s also the day for making your Christmas puddings! If you’re reading this and haven’t already made yours, which you of course do every year from scratch, then I’m afraid you’ve missed the boat, as 24th November was the date in question this year. However, starting a week late won’t ruin your desert, and you can always keep the day in mind for Christmas 2020. On the surface, making a Christmas Pudding yourself is very counter-intuitive. You can buy a decent one in a shop for a few pounds or euros, and they cook in the microwave in an instant. But their fate is usually to sit forlornly on family dinner tables around the land, swimming in cream. This is the fate of many a storebought version, as multitudes today loudly proclaim at Christmas lunches ‘I hate Christmas Pudding’. It appears many Christmas puddings are purchased for the same reason that people buy more alcohol than they could realistically drink in 3 months; because it’s tradition! Nothing makes people feel obligated to dig into something more than declaring that ‘I made it myself, it took weeks and cost a fortune’, and who knows? Perhaps your guests will realise the error of their ways and come to understand how 24
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perfectly Christmas Pudding can round off your fantastic Christmas Dinner. I am a strong advocate in making your own pudding, and whether it tastes better because it really does, or because you think you can taste the love (or money) involved; it’s something that I do with my mum every year. Our family tradition is to check our recipe and take a trip to the shops to spend around £30 on candied peel, dried fruit, rum, speciality sugar and more. We go back home with my dad asking why we don’t just buy one like ‘normal’ people, and then we take over the kitchen for hours catching up and enjoying our yearly tradition that is the pudding preparation. After combining all the ingredients (you basically just stir them together), we then wrap the mixture in cotton (remnants of an old pillow case sacrificed to the Christmas pudding Gods many years ago), tie the ends around a wooden spoon, and dangle it above simmering water for hours, whilst we watch our favourite movie. After that, it’s into the dark with it, in our case a tin in the bottom of the pantry, to be ‘fed’ with increasing amounts of alcohol over the next few weeks ‘til Christmas. You end up with an incredibly rich desert that everyone feels obligated to try, and all but a few ‘hold outs’ declare to be ‘delicious’! Whether your family loves Christmas pudding, or you want to encourage everyone to stay at the table together for dessert; I am a stalwart defender of a home-made pud. It’s a lovely tradition to get the family involved and for all those that would like to participate, I include my recipe opposite. Happy stirring!
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EVERY YEAR WE REVEL IN THE TRADITION OF CHECKING OUR RECIPE AND TRIPPING TO THE SHOPS TO SPEND AROUND £30 ON CANDIED PEEL, DRIED FRUIT, RUM, SPECIALITY SUGAR AND MORE.
