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Farina and Porridge Boiler
XII. Four Puddings of Potatoes. 1. MIX together twelve ounces of boiled mashed potatoes, one ounce suet, one ounce (one-sixteenth of a pint) of milk, and one ounce of cheese. The suet and cheese to be melted or chopped as fine as possible. Add as much hot water as will convert the whole into a tolerably stiff mass; then bake it for a short time in an earthen dish, either in front of the fire or in an oven. 2. Twelve ounces of mashed potatoes, one ounce of milk, and one ounce of suet, with salt. Mix and bake as before. w.M
Two austere potato puddings, given by weight rather than volume, from the tradition of economical cookery. They are cheap, filling and very plain, and they need seasoning and heat handled deliberately.
- The weights in cupsTwelve ounces of boiled mashed potato is roughly 1 1/2 cups, or two to three medium russets. One ounce of milk is about two tablespoons; the recipe's own parenthetical treats a pint as sixteen ounces, though in an imperial pint one-sixteenth would be nearer 1 1/4 fluid ounces.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, sold shredded in some markets and by butchers elsewhere. An ounce is about two tablespoons shredded; chop it as finely as the recipe insists, or it will sit in unmelted beads. Butter or beef drippings stand in without complaint.
- The cheeseOne ounce of a hard, dry grating cheese in version 1 — an aged Cheddar or similar. Grate rather than chop; the recipe offers melting or chopping fine as alternatives, for the cheese as for the suet.
- SaltVersion 2 calls for salt and version 1 does not; version 1 has an ounce of cheese to season it, so the difference may or may not be an oversight. Salt to taste, and pepper them too — with this little fat, unseasoned potato is very dull.
- Hot waterAdd it a spoonful at a time. "A tolerably stiff mass" means the mixture holds a shape and does not slump in the dish; too much water and the pudding steams into a wet paste instead of setting.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no heat and only "a short time"; a moderate modern oven, around 350–375F, until the top is browned and dry, is a reasonable modern reading. Baking "in front of the fire" means a reflector oven set on the hearth, which works as a hot, dry, one-sided oven.
- The dishAn earthen dish is earthenware or stoneware. Any ceramic baking or gratin dish does the same work; grease it, as neither version carries much fat.
- YieldEach version makes a small side dish for two to three, or a supper for one with something green alongside.
Potato puddings of this kind belong to the literature of economical feeding rather than of the table proper — the strain of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cookery writing concerned with how cheaply a labouring family, a workhouse or a soup kitchen could be fed, in which recipes were costed by the ounce and the fat allowance was calculated rather than tasted. The tell is in the proportions: twelve ounces of potato carrying a single ounce of suet and an ounce of milk, with cheese as the one flavouring luxury in the richer of the two versions. The entry is numbered as XII in a series and headed "Four Puddings of Potatoes" while giving only two, and it closes with the initials "w.M". That such a recipe still appears in a household cookbook at all says something about the potato's standing: cheap, filling, and by then thoroughly domesticated in British and American kitchens as a way of stretching a very little fat across a great deal of dinner.