AUTUMN FOOD AND DRINK

A robustly English pudding

PetroneIla Wyatt

CHRISTMAS pudding is the most elo- quent of winter dishes. In an age of Ninten- do games and fluorescent greeting cards, it speaks of Christmas past; of the Christmas of Browning, Victoria and Thackeray; of hansom-cabs ploughing through the snow drifts, of small boys calling out their wares on frosted streets.

Back we go to Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol: Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a wash- ing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered — flushed — but smiling proudly — with the pudding.

All this and it is British, too. Unlike many other aspects of Christmas (or Christ- mas celebrated by the Victorians) such as the Germanic tree, the origins of Christmas pudding are definitely and robustly English. There is no whiff of Germany, Belgium or France here; the Euro-sceptic may indulge with impunity.

Christmas pudding is a blending, or an omnium gatherum, of the rich pageant of British history. Its earliest ancestor may be traced back as far as Anglo-Saxon times. This was winter pottage or porridge — so called for its thick texture — a staple food for all classes up until the 17th century.

The dish was a broth of dried fruits, such as prunes, raisins and currants, mixed with minced meat, bread and onions. One of its advantages was its longevity: it could be stored away in earthenware pots where it would keep for weeks on end during the winter. (In pastry form, this combination of meat and fruit eventually metamorphosed into the mince-pie.) Tapestries and engravings depicting win- ter meals in the Middle Ages show huge bowls of steaming plum porridge jostling with other foods such as boars' heads and haunches of venison. Robin Hood, had he existed, would have sat down to some pot- tage with his Merry Men, doubtless made all the more merry by the liberal helpings of sack with which this dish was laced.

By the 17th century, however, the popu- lation was beginning to tire of heavy broths. Plum porridge was henceforth confined to the festive season, to be eaten only during the 12 days of Christmas, a period of joy- ous, semi-pagan debauchery. In the 17th- century cook book The Accomplish! Cook, by Robert May, stewed broth appears as a festive dish on All Saints' Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. In 1673, William Rabisha pinpointed it as a special seasonal food. (By this time it had become known as Christmas broth.)

It was not until a century later that its transition into a more compact pudding took place. A contributory factor was a change in the nature of meals themselves, which had by this time become more defined. Instead of a selection of sweet and sour dishes placed higgeldy-piggledy on the table, came separate courses climaxing in a single pudding. This coincided with a shift of emphasis from Twelfth Night, the last and most pagan day of the winter feast, to Christmas Day, necessitating a special Christmas Day pudding.

Minced meat was dropped from the recipe and suet added to bind it together into a ball. Uncharacteristically for the hedonistic Georgians, their Christmas pud- ding remained teetotal until the Regency period, when sherry, brandy or ale, and sometimes all three, were added to the ingredients. Around this time came the introduction of the alcoholic butter, usually made from rum rather than brandy. (Rum from the colonies was a cheap commodity, while brandy, which came from France, was often exorbitantly priced, unless you hap- pened to enjoy the acquaintance 4 some amenable smugglers.) But the use of alco- holic sauces was by no means universal. For example, Mrs Becton suggests merely coat- ing the pudding in pounded sugar or icing sugar. The modern Christmas pudding, doused in brandy and ablaze with sprigs of holly, is a 19th-century invention. With customarY puritanism, the Victorians disapproved of the pagan overtones of a long Christmas feast and contracted the holiday into a sin- gle day. (On Boxing Day, clerks like Dick- ens's Bob Cratchit were already back at work.) As only Christmas Day was celebrat- ed, the food took on a special significance,

with Christmas pudding the focal point of the proceedings.

As during a mediaeval banquet, food was provided as much for entertainment as for eating. In the days before television, dra- matic presentation was all. To heighten the excitement, the Victorians decided to set their pudding on fire. Picture a 'speckled cannon-ball', Dickens wrote, 'so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartem of Ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top'. Oh, a wonderful Pudding! Aided by technical developments, such as the heat-proof basin, Dickens's 'wonderful pudding' became an integral part of the family Christmas. The Victorians went as far as crediting it With almost supernatural powers, hence the Practice of giving each member of the fami- ly a stir for good luck. Even Christmas games revolved around its various ingredi- ents. One such game was Snap Dragon, the object of which was to snatch raisins and currants from a bowl of burning brandy. In Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll describes a seasonal insect called a Snap dragon-fly. 'Look on the branch above your head and there you'll find a Snap dragon- fly,' says the Gnat to Alice. 'Its body is made of plum pudding, its wings of holly leaves, and its head a raisin burning in brandy.'

Aside from the Edwardian introduction of brandy butter, Christmas pudding remains much the same dish eaten by Vic- toria and Albert at Balmoral over a century ago. This does not mean, however, that all cooks are agreed as to its precise ingredi- ents. A controversy rages over the use of suet, for instance, with one side — to which I adhere —insisting it gives the pudding an unpleasant, lardy consistency, instead of its Proper texture, that of Irish bog peat.

Jocelyn Dimbleby points out that Christ- mas pudding should be a pleasure to eat rather than an endurance test with an indi- gestion pill for a prize. Accordingly, Christopher Spencer, the culinary historian, makes it a rule to omit suet from his recipe. He also recommends using egg whites, instead of yolks, for an even lighter taste. Sugar may also be left out of the recipe. The fruit will act as an adequate sweetener Oil Its own. For a citron tang, candied oranges and dried apricots may be substi- tuted for prunes, and orange liqueur for brandy.

As for the cooking, a large basin is preferable to the Dickensian cloth. What- ever Dickens said, you really do not want Your pudding to smell like a launderette. Furthermore, when tied in a damp cloth it tends to emerge sodden and misshapen. For a Piquant touch of history, instead of using a basin, boil the pudding in a round mould (they are available at most kitchen

shops) to give it the cannon-ball appear- ance of Victorian days. Another worthwhile tradition is the addition of old sixpences — new coins will not do — to the pudding mixture.

For those of you who are not prepared to tolerate the labour involved in making a pudding, Sainsbury's does a varied and respectable range including a luxury Christ- mas pudding at £5.50 almost marinated in spirits, a Grand Marnier Christmas pud- ding, and a non-alcoholic version for festive hangovers. (They also do a wholemeal veg- etarian pudding, but as Christmas pudding is nothing if not politically incorrect, I trust it will be boycotted.) Finally, one myth that needs exploding is the old wives' tale that Christmas pudding must be made at least a year in advance. A couple of months is a quite adequate peri- od of fermentation, anything longer may result in dryness. Indeed, the pudding may be made as little as two weeks before Christmas. I have put together a recipe which not only guarantees a Christmas pud- ding as easy to eat as it is easy on the eye, but is the saviour of the unprepared cook. I publish it here for the first time.

Ingredients

1 oz unblanched almonds

1 oz cherries (preferably fresh) 6 oz currants 6 oz sultanas 2 oz chopped prunes 3 oz self-raising flour 3 oz soft white breadcrumbs from good bread Small pinch of salt Large pinch of mixed spice Small pinch of freshly grated nutmeg 6 tablespoons barley wine (audit ale) 1 small lemon

Method Place a large pan of water to boil. Wash and dry the fruit. Roughly chcip the almonds and cherries. Mix all the fruit and dry ingredients with the lemon juice. Whisk the eggs with the barley wine. Stir into the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly, giving each member of the family a stir for luck. If desired, add a couple of coins. Turn the mixture into a well greased 2". pint pudding basin (or into a round Dickensian-style mould). Cut a square of foil 2 inches wider than the top of the basin. Make a pleat in the middle and press the edges of the foil under the rim of the basin, pleating as you go. Lower the basin or mould three-quar- ters of the way into boiling water. Simmer between 10 and 13 hours, topping up the water as you go. Remove and cool. Cover with more foil. Keep until needed. Boil pudding for 2 hours before eating. Serve with brandy butter or Jersey cream.

Petrone& Wyatt writes for the Sunday Tele- graph.