Bring Me Some Figgy Pudding!
You have to love a tradition that’s based on a six-century-old recipe. On Thanksgiving Friday, Mrs. Farmboy happily continued one of her own holiday rituals (suspended last year): creation of her Christmas plum pudding. It’s the Christmas tradition that was promoted by none other than Charles Dickens in his 1843 novel A Christmas Carol and touted musically in the 19th-century carol from Bristol, England, We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
I’ve been able to enjoy the wonderful aroma of the pudding steaming on the stove this weekend. And, on Christmas Eve, we will all join in serenading gathered friends and family with “bring us some figgy pudding” while the youngest member of the entourage gets to flame the brandy-soaked pudding in preparation for a delicious, time-honored dessert.
Plum pudding, or Christmas pudding, is an old English recipe composed of primarily dried fruits and spices. “Plum” was the generic term for dried fruit. Its origins were a 15th-century pottage. Like mince pies, that pottage contained chopped beef or mutton, onions, other root vegetables and dried fruit that was thickened with breadcrumbs and flavored with wine, herbs, and spices. Served at the beginning of the meal, it did not begin with any connection to Christmas, according to the Oxford Companion to Food.
Bah, humbug
One hundred years later, the recipe had evolved. Meat was omitted and replaced with suet, and the root vegetables were typically eliminated. By the 1600s, the pudding had come to be associated with Christmas and called Christmas pottage. But when the crown was overthrown and the spoilsport Oliver Cromwell came to rule Britain in 1647, he banned Christmas puddings, along with yule logs, carols, and other celebrations that smacked of paganism. When he was deposed, the Christmas celebrations slowly returned. And 50 years later, Britain’s German-born King George I was labelled the “pudding king” because he was said to have requested plum pudding be served at his first English Christmas banquet.
Over the years, Christmas pudding has accumulated some additional traditions to go along with the dessert. One tradition suggested that it be prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and the 12 apostles. Stirring the pudding supposedly brings luck. Silver coins were often added to the pudding ingredients, bringing good luck for the coming year to those who found them. Other trinkets such as a wishbone brought good luck, a thimble signaled thrift, and an anchor symbolized safe harbor.
Spirit of Christmas past
During the Victorian era, English journalists, political leaders, and novelists worked to promulgate a standardized, family-friendly English Christmas. The Christmas pudding was the culmination and symbolized the British Empire: a globe-like mass studded with savory bits from distant colonies that was steamed together into a settled mass of Englishness. The epitome was the centerpiece of the Dickens’ Cratchit family Christmas feast.
Mrs. Farmboy notes that plum pudding is quite easy to make, although she does set aside several hours for cooking down the fruit, cooling it, and steaming the pudding. She has perfected her own version, using the assortment of dried fruit we prefer: raisins, currants, apricots, and dates. A covered pudding mold greatly simplifies the process. A little metal loop in the cover lets you gently set the pudding on a rack in a pot of simmering water and then lift it out an hour or so later. Unmold the pudding when it’s cool, wrap it tightly, and store it in a dark, cool, dry place (in our case, the back of the refrigerator) to allow the flavors to mature. On the day of serving, set it in the mold to be reheated back in the pot.
Though Christmas puddings are sometimes made with butter, Mrs. Farmboy swears by suet. I remember one year of frantically searching local markets for suet, which it seems can be hard to come by close to Christmas – another reason for moving the making of the pudding to the day after Thanksgiving. The Joy of Cooking points to the necessity for chopped beef suet. The suet melts relatively late in the steaming process, after the starch in the batter has begun to set. The result is thousands of tiny spaces in the pudding that make it soft and fine-grained, and adding richness to the flavor.
Spirit of Christmas present … and future
Using butter or shortening, the cookbook says, results in a greasy, heavy pudding. We wouldn’t want that. What we do enjoy each Christmas Eve is a flamed pudding that once extinguished and served, topped with an English hard sauce made with butter, confectioner’s sugar, and brandy, yields a tasty tradition. Bring it on December 24, and again next year.
