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Economical Plum Pudding
4 cupfuls flour. 1½ cup of suet. 1 cupful milk. 2 cupfuls raisins. 1 cupful molasses. 2 eggs, and 1 teaspoonful of soda. Boil four hours.--Mrs. L. Another Recipe for the Same.
One bowl of raisins, one of currants; one of bread crumbs; one bowl of eggs; one of brown sugar; one of suet; citron at pleasure. Boil four hours.--Mrs. L.
Two versions of the same pudding, both given in the shorthand of a cook who already knew what she was doing. The first is a molasses-and-suet batter pudding; the second is a richer fruit pudding measured entirely by bowlfuls.
- The "bowl" is not a unitIn the second recipe every ingredient is measured against the same bowl, whatever size it happened to be, so the proportions are what matter, not the volume.
- Boil means steamBoiling -- These puddings were tied in a floured cloth and lowered into boiling water, or packed into a buttered basin and set covered in a pot, for the full four hours. Water should come halfway up a basin and be topped up with boiling water as it evaporates, and the pot should not be allowed to go off the boil.
- SuetBeef suet is the hard fat from around the kidneys, and it must be shredded or grated fine and tossed with a little of the flour so it disperses. Butchers will often supply it on request; packaged shredded suet keeps in the freezer. Frozen suet grates much more easily than fresh.
- Soda and molassesThe teaspoon of soda in the first pudding is there to react with the acid in the molasses, not to act alone. Dissolve it in the milk and mix at the last moment, then get the pudding into the water promptly.
- MolassesThe molasses of an ordinary nineteenth-century household was closer to what is now sold as dark or full-flavor molasses than to blackstrap, which is bitter and will overwhelm the fruit.
- CurrantsThese are dried Zante currants, a small raisin, not fresh red or black currants. Substituting the fresh fruit will ruin the pudding.
- Bread crumbsDry, fine crumbs from stale white bread, not the coarse fresh crumbs or seasoned crumbs sold today. They should be light enough to pack loosely into the bowl.
- Yield and servingTurn it out hot and serve with a hard sauce of butter, sugar and brandy, or a thin sweet wine sauce; both were common accompaniments in books of this period. No sauce is given here.
- KeepingThe second, richer pudding will keep some days wrapped and chilled. Steam it again for about an hour to reheat rather than reheating it dry.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia was compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree in 1878 from contributions by some 250 Virginia housewives, which is why so many recipes carry only an initial and a courtesy title, and why the same contributor sometimes offers two versions of one dish. "Economical" here is a real distinction: a proper Christmas plum pudding of the period typically called for something like a pound each of raisins, currants, suet and sugar plus brandy, candied peel and a long-kept maturation, while Mrs. L.'s first version leans on flour and molasses to get a similar effect for a fraction of the cost. Molasses was among the everyday sweeteners in many Southern households well into the late nineteenth century, cheaper and more available than refined sugar, though sorghum and other regional preferences also had their place. The name "plum pudding" preserves an older English sense of plum meaning any dried fruit, raisins above all, a usage that had already drifted out of ordinary speech by the time this book was printed.