Christmas pudding: dried fruit, trade and homemade ingenuity
British fruit pudding explores home cooking, long-distance trade and holiday recipes in times of food shortages.
The recipe becomes clear to the reader
Historic Royal Palaces food historians tell the story of Victorian pudding through Eliza Acton's book. The recipe already contains the familiar list of ingredients, measures and description of the process. The pudding was cooked in a cloth, obtaining a round shape. This reading of an old cookbook reveals the specific kitchen techniques behind the ceremonial dessert image and helps to notice differences from modern ready-made puddings.
Geography in an advertising picture
The National Archives of Great Britain contains F. C. Harrison's work on the preparation of the "Imperial" Christmas pudding, dating from 1927 to 1933. It comes from Empire Marketing Board documents and links ingredients to different areas of the British Empire. Here the holiday dish was used to represent colonial trade connections. The history of the recipe turns out to be both a history of advertising and a political view of the origin of products.
Holiday with food shortages
English Heritage publishes an eggless version of the pudding recipe from the 1940s. It preserves dried fruits, spices and steaming, and the composition is adapted to wartime conditions. This is an example of a familiar holiday meal changing due to the availability of ingredients. It does not mean that all families cooked the same way: we have one documented version of home resourcefulness.
What to choose for the fruit part
Another English Heritage recipe uses several types of raisins and candied citrus peel together. This combination explains the pudding's interest for a dried fruit lover: the fruit part consists of different textures and aromas. When purchasing, first read the selected recipe and composition of candied fruits. A mixture of randomly colored pieces does not necessarily replace the citrus peel that this particular variation calls for.
The main thing in practice
- Historical recipes show different ways of preparing the pudding.
- Trade advertising used the holiday dish as a political symbol.
- The composition of dried fruits and the type of candied fruits are chosen according to a specific recipe.
Sources
- A Christmas Pudding Recipe with a Victorian twist — Historic Royal Palaces
- CO 956/62 — Making the Empire Christmas Pudding — The National Archives, UK
- Eggless Christmas Pudding — 1940s recipe — English Heritage
- Plum Pudding — English Heritage