Christmas pudding

There is a popular myth that plum pudding's association with Christmas goes back to a custom in medieval England that the "pudding should be made on the 25th Sunday after Trinity, that it be prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and the 12 apostles, and that every family member stir it in turn from east to west to honour the Magi and their journey in that direction".[1] However, recipes for plum puddings appear mainly, if not entirely, in the 17th century and later. One of the earliest plum pudding recipes is given by Mary Kettilby in her 1714 book A Collection of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery.[11] There is a popular and wholly unsubstantiated myth that in 1714, King George I (sometimes known as the Pudding King)[1] requested that plum pudding be served as part of his royal feast in his first Christmas in England.[1]

Christmas pudding's possible ancestors include savoury puddings such as those in Harleian MS 279, croustades,[12] malaches whyte,[13] creme boiled (a kind of stirred custard), and sippets. Various ingredients and methods of these older recipes appear in early plum puddings. An early example of a bag pudding (without fruit) is "fraunche mele" in the Liber Cure Cocorum.[14] Pudding "had the great merit" of not needing to be cooked in an oven, something "most lower class households did not have".[15] Pudding predecessors often contained meat, as well as sweet ingredients, and prior to being steamed in a cloth the ingredients may have been stuffed into the gut or stomach of an animal - like the Scottish haggis or sausages.[16]

As techniques for meat preserving improved in the 18th century, the savoury element of both the mince pie and the plum pottage diminished as the sweet content increased. People began adding dried fruit and sugar. The mince pie kept its name, though the pottage was increasingly referred to as plum pudding. As plum pudding, it became widespread as a feast dish, not necessarily associated with Christmas, and usually served with beef. It makes numerous appearances in 18th century satire as a symbol of Britishness, including the Gilray cartoon, The Plum Pudding in Danger.

It was not until the 1830s that a boiled cake of flour, fruits, suet, sugar and spices, all topped with holly, made a definite appearance, becoming more and more associated with Christmas. The East Sussex cook Eliza Acton was the first to refer to it as "Christmas Pudding" in her bestselling 1845 book Modern Cookery for Private Families.[17]

It was in the late Victorian era that the 'Stir up Sunday' myth began to take hold. The collect for the Sunday before Advent in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer begins with the words "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works...". This led to the custom of preparing Christmas puddings on that day which became known as Stir-up Sunday, associated with the stirring of the Christmas pudding.[18]

The custom of eating Christmas pudding was carried to many parts of the world by British colonists. It is a common dish in the Republic of Ireland, Australia,[19] New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa Throughout the colonial period, the pudding was a symbol of unity throughout the British Empire. In 1927, the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) wrote a letter to the Master of the Royal Household, requesting a copy of the recipe used to make the Christmas pudding for the royal family. The King and Queen granted Leo Amery, the head of the EMB, permission to use the recipe in a publication in the following November. The royal chef, Henry Cédard, provided the recipe. In order to distribute the recipe, the EMB had to overcome two challenges: size and ingredients. First, the original recipe was measured to serve 40 people, including the entire royal family and their guests. The EMB was challenged to rework the recipe to serve only 8 people. Second, the ingredients used to make the pudding had to be changed to reflect the ideals of the Empire. The origins of each ingredient had to be carefully manipulated to represent each of the Empire's many colonies. Brandy from Cyprus and nutmeg from the West Indies, which had been inadvertently forgotten in previous recipes, made special appearances. Unfortunately, there were a number of colonies that produced the same foodstuffs. The final recipe included Australian currants, South African stoned raisins, Canadian apples, Jamaican rum, and English Beer, among other ingredients all sourced from somewhere in the Empire. After finalizing the ingredients, the royal recipe was sent out to national newspapers and to popular women's magazines. Copies were also printed and handed out to the public for free. The recipe was a phenomenal success, as thousands of requests for the recipe flooded the EMB office.[20]

In America, the traditions of the Christmas Pudding had already arrived in pre-revolutionary days.[21] A book entitled The Williamsburg Art of Cookery[22] by Helen Bullock was published in the U.S. as early as 1742. Among the ingredients she includes a pound of each of a variety of dried fruits and sugar, plus 1/2lb each of candied peel (citron, orange and lemon). She also adds 1 pint of brandy and 12 eggs.

Jane Cunningham Croly published a 19th-century recipe for plum pudding contributed to Jennie June's American Cookery Book by the American poet sisters Alice Cary and Phoebe Cary. It was made as bread pudding, by soaking stale bread in milk then adding suet, candied citron, nutmeg, eggs, raisins and brandy. It was a molded dessert, cooked in boiling water for several hours, and served with a sweet wine sauce.[23]