Savoury, Sweet, Boiled & Baked!
THE COMPLICATED HISTORY OF
PUDDING LESSON
OBJECTIVES
• Develop food preparation and food safety skills
• Practice fine motor skills
• Learn to count, measure and follow recipe directions
• Learn about the history of cooking and food in North America
GRADE LEVEL(S)
• We created this lesson for Elementary aged-children, but students of all ages may enjoy
the activity.
• This is dependent on your student as some children have very fine motor skills at a
young age and others have a natural interest in food and history. Please fully read this
lesson and adapt it to the child’s level.
• If adapting to K-2, focus on practising fine motor skills.
• If adapting to 3-5, add more emphasis to the history lesson.
MATERIALS NEEDED
• Large pot
• Water for boiling
• Stove
• Fine bread crumbs
• Currants or raisins
• Lemon zest
• Lard or vegetable shortening
• Flour
• 4 eggs
• Powdered ginger
• Slotted spoon
• Plate
• Maple syrup
HISTORY LESSON
Today, most people you know describe pudding as a
dessert with a creamy consistency. A typical modern
recipe includes sugar, cornstarch, milk and egg
yokes and makes a custard-style pudding.
Modern chocolate pudding
This is very different from how a pudding would
have been described 200 or even 700 years ago.
Back then, traditional puddings were boiled and
often had ingredients that we would consider odd,
such as spiced meat.
Spiced meat puddings
Puddings have a long and complicated history. The
first puddings were similar to sausages and were
boiled in animal intestines called casings. About 700
hundred years ago, cloth pudding bags replaced
casings. This change made puddings more popular
because the cloth used to make the bag was easy to
find and could be reused.
Have you heard the words “savoury” and “sweet”
describe food before? Savoury food is flavourful
food cooked with salt and spices. Sweet food
contains sugars. We use savory to describe food
like meat, pasta, and roasted vegetables. We use
sweet to describe food like ice cream, pastries, fruit,
and candy. Usually your meal is savoury and your
dessert is sweet.
Early savoury puddings, were made with meat and
spices. Savoury puddings were eventually replaced
with sweet puddings made using flour, nuts and
sugar. A popular sweet pudding still enjoyed
today is Christmas pudding; also know as a plum
or figgy pudding. The ingredients include sugar,
raisins, candied orange peel, eggs, breadcrumbs,
nutmeg, cloves, allspice and alcohol. There is even a
popular Christmas song all about demanding sweet
pudding! Do you know how it goes? You can find it
on the last page of this lesson.
A lady serves Christmas pudding to her family
There are hundreds of types of puddings found in
old recipe books that included boiling and baking.
Most of the first recipe books in North America
came from England and used ingredients found in
England. Cooks adapted the recipes to use local
ingredients including corn, squash and beans.
Indigenous people taught European settlers about
local foods and how to grow them when they
arrived. They helped the settlers survive during
their first years in North America. By 1800, North
Americans were writing and publishing their own
recipe books that included local ingredients such as
corn pudding and sweet potato pudding.
The modern steamed puddings, like Christmas
pudding, evolved from boiled puddings. In the
mid-1800s, boiled puddings became less popular
in North America. This was partly because of
improvements in cooking technology. As stoves
replaced open-hearth fireplaces, puddings were
steamed or baked instead of boiled in a bag. A
typical pudding could take four hours and more to
boil and during this time, the cook continuously
topped up the water as it evaporated. Baking or
steaming a pudding was much easier. Slowly, boiled
and steamed puddings became less common and
the creamy, custard-style pudding became the
pudding of choice in North America.
The New Brunswicker stove at the Joslin Farm
An open-hearth fireplace at the Morehouse Farm
We still enjoy other types of puddings. Yorkshire
pudding is a baked savoury pudding made with
roast drippings. For many, it would be difficult to
imagine a roast beef dinner without it. Rice, bread
and corn puddings are sweet and baked in the
oven. And every year, grocery stores sell steamed
Christmas puddings. They are still a tradition for
many North American families!
Roast beef dinner with yorkshire pudding at the King’s Head Inn
ACTIVITY
For this activity, we’re making hasty puddings!
These are small dumpling style puddings that cook
quickly; ideal for camp cooking. This recipe might
have been used by a soldier at an encampment,
a hunting party, or a family who recently moved
to the wilderness and did not have a home built
yet. At a campsite, it’s better to have a recipe that
does not need several hours of constant tending. A
soldier may not have a lot of time to prepare a meal
before having to pack up and move out.
Do you remember in the lesson when we talked
about casings and pudding bags? A hasty pudding
did not need these! Instead, each pudding is coated
in flour and dropped into the boiling water for
about 10 to 15 minutes.
Older recipes did not list measurements. Most
cooks knew by feel and experience how much
breadcrumbs or suet to use. Food historians spend a
lot of time studying the recipes and experimenting
with ingredients, measurements and cooking
methods. We are grateful for their research and
thank them for making it available for us to use.
This recipe is based on Maria Eliza Rundell’s 1807
cookbook, A New System of Domestic Cookery and
adapted from a version shared on savoringthepast.
net. Instead of using suet (cow kidney fat), we
substituted lard. Suet can be difficult to find. Lard
is softer, so we added more breadcrumbs to help
keep things together. If you do not have lard, you
could try using vegetable shortening. If you do,
let us know how it turned out. We have not tried
vegetable shortening yet.
“Puddings in Haste” is unsweetened. These
puddings were not intended to be eaten on their
own. Puddings were generally served with a sauce.
A popular sauce combined equal parts butter, sugar
and sac (sherry wine) but a family who had a spring
sugar camp would drizzle maple syrup on their
pudding. In the early 1800s, imported sugar could
be difficult to find. A family living in the backwoods
of New Brunswick used maple sugar more often
than store-bought sugar. Some families kept bees,
but maple syrup was a favourite until the inland
transportation systems, such as the railway, were
developed.
FOOD SAFETY
• Before starting, everyone should wash their hands
with soap and water.
• Those with long hair should tie it back to keep it
away from the food.
• Hot stoves, knives and other appliances may cause
injury, so it is important to practice safe handling of
all utensils and appliances.
PUDDINGS IN HASTE
SERVES 12
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cup fine bread crumbs
1/2 cup Zante currants or raisins
1/2 lemon zest
1 cup lard, room temperature
Flour for dredging
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
PREPARATION
1. Bring water to a boil in a large pot.
2. In a bowl combine bread crumbs, raisins, lemon
zest and lard. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg
yolks and ginger.
4. Fold in bread crumb mixture and mix until dough
is even.
5. Roll the mixture into egg-sized balls. Coat the
balls with flour.
6. Carefully drop balls into boiling water. Cover
tightly with a lid and cook for about 15 to 20
minutes.
7. Using a slotted spoon, remove puddings from the
water and set on a plate.
8. Let the pudding balls rest for about 3 minutes.
9. Serve warm or cold with maple syrup.
Sources
• Barksdale, Nate. “The History of Christmas Pudding.” A&E Television Networks, 31 August 2018. www.
history.com.
• Buttery, Neil. “What is a Pudding?: Addendum” British Food: A History, 7 March 2012. https://
britishfoodhistory.com/.
• Buttery, Neil. “What is a Pudding?” British Food: A History, 15 November 2011. https://britishfoodhistory.
com/.
• Carter, Kevin. “Please Bring Back the Puddings!” Savoring the Past, 3 October 2013. https://savoringthepast.
net.
• jmalin1026. “Puddings in Haste!” Savoring the Past, 10 August 2015. https://savoringthepast.net.
• Rundell, Marie Eliza. A New System of Domestic Cookery. By a Lady. 2nd ed. London: John Murray, 1807.
• Simmons, Amelia. The First American Cookbook, American Cookery: or, the art of dressing Viands, Fish,
Poultry and Vegetables, and the best mode of making Puff-Pastes, Pies, Tarts, Puddings, Custards and
Preserves and all kinds of CAKES from the Imperial Plumb to plain Cake. 2nd ed. Hartford: Hudson &
Goodwin, 1796.
• Snell, Rachel A. “As North American as Pumpkin Pie: Cookbooks and the Development of National Cuisine in
North America, 1796-1854”. Cuizine 5, no. 2 (2014). https://doi.org/10.7202/1026771ar.
Kings Landing’s Hasty Puddings
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We Wish You a Merry Christmas
We wish you a Mer-ry Christ-mas, we wish you a Mer-ry Christ-mas, we
wish you a Mer-ry Christ - mas and a Hap - py New Year. Good
This Arrangement Copyright © 2014 Music-for-Music-Teachers.com
All Rights Reserved
English Carol
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding, Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding, and a cup of good cheer!
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We won't go until we get some, We won't go until we get some,
We won't go until we get some, so bring some out here!
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We wish you a Merry Christmas, We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
ti - dings we bring to you and your kin; Good
ti - dings for Christ - mas and a Hap - py New Year.
