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Fig Pudding
Ingredients.
Half a pound of Bread-crumbs.
Half a pound of Beef Suet.
Half a pound of Sugar.
Half a pound of Figs.
Quarter of a pound of Sultanas.
Two ounces of Flour.
Two ounces of Citron.
Two ounces of Almonds.
One ounce of Bitter Almonds.
One glass of Brandy.
Rind of one Lemon, grated.
This is an ingredient list from a professional kitchen, written for a cook who already knew what to do with it. It also contains an ingredient that has since been withdrawn from food use, and that is the reason to leave it alone.
- The bitter almondsAn ounce of bitter almonds is on the order of a couple of dozen kernels. Bitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernels are crushed and moistened — exactly what happens when they are pounded and mixed into a wet pudding batter. Sale of unprocessed bitter almonds for eating is prohibited in the United States and restricted across the EU precisely because the dose in a handful is not trivially far from a harmful one.
- Heat does not fix itSteaming drives off some hydrogen cyanide, but a sealed, basin-steamed pudding is close to the worst case: the batter is enclosed, the cooking is gentle, and there is no way to know how much remains. Do not substitute apricot kernels, which carry the same compound, often in higher concentration.
- What the bitter almonds were forThey were a flavouring, not a bulk ingredient — the marzipan-and-cherry note now supplied by a few drops of almond extract or by natural benzaldehyde. Any modern fig pudding recipe will give you that aroma without the glycoside.
- No method is givenThe page gives quantities only; the handling was left to the cook. A page with no times, no basin size and no cooking instruction is not a workable recipe on its own even setting the almonds aside; use a current fig pudding recipe.
- Suet and citron, for referenceBeef suet here means the hard kidney fat, bought in a block and grated or shredded; packaged shredded suet is the direct modern equivalent. Citron is the candied peel of the thick-rinded Citrus medica, not lemon peel, and is still sold at Christmas baking counters.
- The glass of brandyThe recipe says only 'one glass'. Period glass measures are commonly reckoned at around two fluid ounces, though usage varied; on any of those readings this is a flavouring quantity, not a soaking one.
Fig puddings sit in the same family as the boiled and steamed plum puddings that dominated British dessert cookery through the nineteenth century: breadcrumbs and suet for body, dried fruit for sweetness and richness, spirits and citrus peel for keeping and perfume. Figs made it a slightly lighter, less funereal cousin of the Christmas pudding, and it appears in Victorian and Edwardian professional collections as a standard item for the hot puddings service. The pairing of sweet almonds with a smaller proportion of bitter ones was routine confectioners' practice of the era — bitter almonds carried the flavour, sweet almonds the substance — though the proportions varied widely from recipe to recipe, and bitter almonds turn up in the same way in period ratafias, macaroons and almond creams. That usage faded through the twentieth century, for reasons usually given as some mixture of a growing wariness about the cyanogenic content of the kernels, regulation, and the arrival of cheap, reliable synthetic and distilled almond flavourings, which are free of it.