Chef’s Pantry

Chef’s Pantr y Christmas Pudding

Christmas pudding, plum pudding or figgy pudding? Whatever you call it, it is made without a fig or plum in sight. Served with custard, cream, clotted cream, brandy butter, brandy sauce or any combination thereof, this is a truly English tradition, which goes back centuries. I am a keen follower of tradition, especially at Christmas.

Christmas pudding as we know it now is very different from how it started. It emerged against a background of the end of the Crusades, the start of the 100 year war, the Black Death and general unrest in England. A dish named Frumenty was a soup-like concoction consisting of beef, mutton, prunes, raisins and wine & spices. It was eaten as a fasting meal before the Christmas festivities started. So where do plums come into it? The word plum was used in medieval England to describe raisins. This meant that the names plum pottage, figgy pudding, plum pudding and so on were given to anything that contained dried fruit. The puddings were traditionally made in a spherical shape like a cannon ball and kept in animal stomachs or intestines, a bit like sausages or haggis, and stored for months until needed. To cook, the pudding would then be boiled in a muslin cloth. By the reign of Elizabeth the First, the pudding had changed into plum pudding with the addition of eggs, breadcrumbs, dried fruit, beer and spirits. It became the custom to eat plum pudding at Christmas. However that wasn’t to last as Cromwell banned plum pudding as he deemed it bad custom. It’s not until Charles the Second was king that the pudding was put back on the menu.

The Christmas pudding we eat today isn’t very different from the one in Victorian times. It would have traditionally consisted of 13 ingredients, representing Jesus and the 12 apostles. Once made, the pudding was usually aged for a month or even up to a year; the high alcohol content prevented the pudding from spoiling and it was often dried out on hooks for weeks in order to enhance the flavour.

The Victorian era recipe involved putting the

mix into a basin and steaming it for hours, turning it out on a plate and decorating the top with a sprig of holly. The holly represented the crown of thorns and the flaming brandy representing the ‘Passion of Christ’. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to eat Christmas pudding at Easter?

In the late Victorian period a tradition grew that Christmas puddings should be made on or immediately after the Sunday before Advent which became known as ‘Stir up Sunday’. By the 1920s the custom had become well established. Everyone in the household, or at least every child and sometimes the servants, would give the mixture a stir and make a wish.

It was common practice to include a small silver coin or coins in the mix. The usual choice was a silver thrupenny bit or sixpence. The coin, if you were lucky enough to be the one to find it, was believed to bring you good fortune for the following year. Many of you will, no doubt, have your own recipe, possibly handed down for generations, which is tried and tested. If not, there are some very good recipes online as well as puddings available from your favourite shops.

When making my own pudding, I love the aroma of the sweet spices that give Christmas pudding and Christmas cake their distinctive rich smell. Whether pudding or cake, for me, I like it to be very dark in appearance and fed with brandy, stout or porter. Whatever your preferred ingredients and flavours, have a go, make your own, and let the smell linger into Christmas.

Food for Thought: Christmas Pudding a national symbol? Christmas pudding; not just for Christmas! Deborah Loader