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Rumford's Plain Indian Pudding
"This pudding," says Count Rumford in his "Essay on Food," "which was allowed by competent judges who tasted it to be as good as they had ever eaten, was composed, and prepared in the following manner. Three pounds of Indian meal (from which the bran had been separated by sifting it in a common hair sieve) were put into a large bowl, and five pints of boiling water were put to it, and the whole well stirred together; three-quarters of a pound of molasses and one ounce of salt were then added to it, and these being well mixed, by stirring them with the other ingredients, the pudding was poured into a fit bag, and the bag being tied up (an empty space being left in the bag in tying it, equal to about one-sixth of its contents, for giving room to the pudding to swell), this pudding was put into a kettle of boiling water, and was boiled six hours without intermission; the loss of water in the kettle by evaporation during this time being frequently replaced with boiling water from another kettle. The pudding, upon being taken out of the bag, weighed ten pounds and one ounce; and it was found to be perfectly done, not having the smallest remains of that raw taste so disagreeable to all palates, and particularly to those who are not used to it, which always predominates in dishes prepared of Indian meal when they are not sufficiently cooked."
Rumford wrote this as a demonstration rather than a household recipe, so the quantities are institutional and the wording assumes a pudding cloth and an open fire. It scales down cleanly.
- Indian mealIndian meal is cornmeal. Rumford sifts out the bran through a hair sieve, which leaves something closer to a medium-grind meal than to whole cornmeal; note that sifting removes bran but not germ, so modern degerminated meal is not an exact equivalent. Stone-ground meal will work but gives a coarser, more assertive pudding.
- The hinge: long, unbroken cookingThe whole point of the passage is that cornmeal tastes raw and chalky unless it is cooked far longer than seems necessary. Six hours at a steady simmer, with the water topped up from a second kettle so the boil never drops, is what removes that flavour. Cutting the time is the one change that ruins it.
- Quantities and scaling3 lb meal, 5 pints water, 3/4 lb molasses, 1 oz salt yields ten pounds one ounce of pudding. A third of the recipe — 1 lb (about 3 cups) cornmeal, 1 pint 2/3 (roughly 950 ml) boiling water, 4 oz (about 1/3 cup) molasses, a generous teaspoon of salt — makes a manageable pudding of a little over 3 lb.
- The saltAn ounce of salt in ten pounds of pudding is about 0.6 percent by weight, which is seasoned rather than salty. Measure by weight, not by spoon, since an ounce of coarse salt fills far more space than an ounce of fine.
- The bagUse a close-woven cotton or linen cloth, scalded, wrung out and dusted inside with flour so the batter does not stick. Leave the one-sixth of slack Rumford specifies: the meal swells considerably and a tightly tied bag splits or gives you a dense core. Tie the neck with kitchen string and keep the bag off the bottom of the pot, either on a trivet or slung from the handles.
- A pudding basin insteadIf a cloth is not to hand, the same batter steams well in a buttered basin covered with pleated parchment and foil, standing in a covered pan of simmering water. Allow the same six hours and keep the water level at two-thirds up the basin.
- ServingThe original gives no serving note. This is a plain sweet pudding: turn it out, slice it thick and serve hot with butter, cream or extra molasses. A third-recipe pudding gives eight to ten servings; cold slices fry well in butter the next day.
Count Rumford was Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814), born in Massachusetts, a Loyalist who left for Europe and made his name in Bavaria as a natural philosopher, military administrator and improver of stoves, chimneys and institutional kitchens. The Essays from which Cassell's quotes were largely concerned with feeding the poor of Munich cheaply and palatably, and Rumford was fascinated by how much nourishment could be got from bulk grain, water and long cooking; his Indian pudding is offered as evidence, complete with weights before and after, in the manner of a laboratory note rather than a cookbook. Indian meal was American food, and its reputation for tasting "raw" is exactly what he set out to disprove, the point of the demonstration being that cornmeal needs hours, not minutes, of moist heat before its starch and flavour come round.