FOOD & DRINK
again as we all become more health con- scious. However, it is well worth sampling these unique creations that often involve bread, sugar, dried fruits and suet. Suet is the hard white fat on the kidneys and loins of cattle, sheep and other animals, often used to make traditional puddings, pastry and mincemeat (the sweet dried fruit filling you find in mince pies served at Christmas), it gives a melting quality and richness to the dish. In Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1861 and a book still revered by cooks today, Isabella Beeton extols the virtues of fat and butter in her puddings. She wrote: “Good fresh butter, used in moderation, is easily digested; it is softening, nutritious and fattening, and is far more easily di- gested than any other of the oleaginous substances sometimes used in its place.”
Mrs Beeton’s book contains recipes for many puddings that remain popular to this day: jam roly-poly, baked custard pudding, rice puddings and apple tart. Her recipe for baked bread and butter pudding is the basis for many modern bread and butter pudding recipes and includes currants, vanilla flavouring and nutmeg. There are many of Mrs Beeton’s puddings though that have already faded into history and are no longer made: Herodotus pudding (breadcrumbs, figs, suet, sugar, salt, eggs and nutmeg); Empress pudding (a kind of rice pudding, interlayered with jam and topped with puff pastry); Delhi pudding (cooked apples and currants in a pastry case, which is then boiled for two hours); Royal Coburg pudding; Barbary tart; and Macaroni pudding.
It would be a sad day if our children did 14 FOCUS The Magazine May/June 2019
not get to sample some of the delightful puddings that are still available. Often pud- dings are quick and easy to make and are a good way of using up leftovers: stale bread can be transformed into treacle tart or bread and butter pudding; milk and eggs that need using up can be quickly whipped up into a custard; lingering raisins can be thrown into a spotted dick; normal rice, as well as pudding rice, can be used for a rice pudding; fruit can be used for crumbles and summer fruits are perfect for a summer pudding.
For those looking for healthy alternatives, simply substitute ingredients to make the dishes less fat and sugar heavy. Coconut butter can be used instead of suet or but- ter (or you can buy vegetarian suet) and simply reduce the quantity of sugar needed in some recipes by a quarter, you often won’t notice the difference. Alternatively, replace the sugar with healthier sugars, for example use agave syrup instead of golden syrup or coconut blossom sugar instead of caster sugar.
My two personal favourite puddings I would recommend you try are a tradi- tional steak and ale pudding, which is hard to find now in restaurants but I have seen that some traditional pubs and restaurants do serve it in September as part of British Food Fortnight. I would then have a slice of clootie dumpling afterwards, a Scottish steamed pudding that you may need to go to Scotland for.
As for equipment, the key is a good pud- ding bowl, they come in all sizes from small to large; Mason Cash is a great place to start. You will also need string and muslin to tie over the top of the bowl if
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