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CALENDAR Sunday 7 November: Thirty-second Sunday of the Year (Year C) Monday 8 November: Feria Tuesday 9 November: Dedication of the Lateran Basilica Wednesday 10 November: St Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor Thursday 11 November: St Martin of Tours, Bishop Friday 12 November: St Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr Saturday 13 November: Feria Sunday 14 November: Thirty-third Sunday of the Year


■For the Extraordinary Form calendar go to www.latin-mass-society.org/ordo.htm


Published weekly except Christmas. Periodicals Postage Paid at Rahway, NJ, and at additional mailing offices. U.S. Postmaster: Send airspeed address corrections to The Tablet, c/o Air Business Limited, 4 The Merlin Centre, Acrewood Way, St Albans, Herts AL4 0JY, UK. Annual subscription rate US$177. © The Tablet Publishing Company Limited 2010 The Tablet is printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, The Invicta Press, Lower Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH, for the proprietors The Tablet Publishing Company Limited, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY 6 November 2010


Independently audited certified average circulation per issue of THE TABLET for issues distri buted between 1 January and


30 June 2010 is 22,000. Volume 264 No. 8869 ISSN: 0039 8837


THE ETHICAL KITCHEN


Stirring stuff ROSE PRINCE


WHILE PREPARINGfor Stir Up Sunday (this year on 21 November), the traditional day for mixing Christmas pudding, I am reminded that the pud’s manifold contents say much about English piratical eating habits. With each dried and candied fruit, every added spice and fresh ingredient, the pudding is the story of the world’s food supply as we have come to know it. But 500 years spent expanding the food market to every part of the globe is a tale that is bittersweet. The nations that supply the ingredients for the pudding depend heavily on demand, but people are often exploited on price. Small tributary farms in the Mediterranean countries and Far East lose out as they feed into larger and larger channels of supply before reaching British consumers. There are other options, however. The


Fairtrade Foundation has certified a number of fruits, fresh and dried, plus spices (details of which can be found on its website www.fairtrade.org.uk). Supermarkets, too, are increasingly involved in projects that offer a better deal to farmers. The cost of these items is higher, but having seen for myself the dif- ference that being part of such schemes makes to the world’s farming families, buy- ing into this is a useful way in which you can enhance their lives, too. The secret ingredi- ents of this Christmas pudding recipe are grated pumpkin and a few gratings of chocolate.


Christmas pudding Serves 8-12


115g raisins 115g sultanas 115g chopped Smyrna figs 115g chopped pitted prunes 115g chopped Medjool dates 115g grated pumpkin


1 grated Bramley apple 100ml cider or ale 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks 2 tbsp black treacle 115g dark muscovado sugar 115g ground almonds 115g beef suet (or vegetable suet if you wish) 85g grated plain chocolate 115g white spelt flour or wholewheat flour ½ tsp ground mixed spice ½ tsp grated nutmeg ½ tsp ground cinnamon


Butter a pudding basin and line the base with a circle of baking paper. Into a very large bowl put all the dried fruit, the grated pump- kin, and apple. Pour the ale over this mixture and leave to stand for about 10-20 minutes until the raisins have plumped up a little. Mix in the beaten eggs and egg yolks; the black treacle, sugar, ground almonds and suet; fol- lowed by the chocolate. Add the flour and spices, folding them into the pudding well. Spoon into the greased bowl and cover the sur- face of the pudding with another circle of baking paper. Cut a large piece of baking paper (big enough to cover the bowl and be tied down) and a similar-sized piece of foil. Lay the foil one on top of the baking paper, and fold to make a pleat so they hold together. Lay over the bowl, and tie down with a piece of string. Place in a large deep pan and add water to halfway up the basin. Cover with a lid, and simmer slowly at just under 100˚C, steaming the pudding for about six hours. You can cut the cooking time by using a pressure cooker and following the manufacturer's instructions. Allow to cool and store at room temperature. From time to time, open the seal and sprinkle with brandy. You will need to steam the pudding again for about three hours before serving it.


Glimpses of Eden


THE GROUND whizzed beneath my feet, the hedge roared by, then we reached the bottom of the hill and began to slow as we


climbed once more. A few moments later, we had to get off our bikes and push. Transformed from flying swallows to crawling snails, we edged up the steep ascent.


At the top of the rise, we were ready again for the rush of air and the hurl-past of tree and autumn leaf. Having never learnt to drive a car, I was discovering real personal pace for the first time in my adult life, and I felt like Toad in the Wind in the Willows. On a flatter terrain, we sailed along at a more moderate pace.


40 | THE TABLET | 6 November 2010


I’d often come this way as a passenger in the car but it was only now, high enough to glimpse over hedges, and slow enough to see as well as look, that I was witnessing the land prop- erly. That ditch-like depression measuring a perimeter round a field of dairy cows, was the remains of the medieval moat, which I’d often searched for in vain. That flapping of white wings belonged to the denizens of the goose pen, which previously we’d only ever heard. And what was calling from the woods? We stopped to watch a buzzard on a dead tree 50 yards away. Just before we set off again, a white flower caught the eye. It was the May stitchwort blooming on All Saints’ Day.


Jonathan Tulloch


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