By Viktoria
Christmas day might be over, but that does not mean that the festive blog posts must end. Today is technically the 11th day of Christmas, and thus until Epiphany occurs, I shall not yield to the end of festive activities and writings.
A Christmas Carol is one of my favourite holiday stories. I remember huddling myself down with my family at the Citadel Theatre during one of A Christmas Carol's productions. I was mesmerized by the costumes, the raw Christmas cheer and the familiar tale that always felt like a warm hug. As a pixie-haired teenager, I acted in an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, where I acted as young Scrooge’s headmistress and Belinda Cratchit. The Cratchit scenes were always my favourite to act out. It was such a friendly environment where all of us hunched over our real Christmas dinner plates, smiling and joking amongst one another. I would often have to wrangle the young Tiny Tim(s) on my lap during this tender moment, but I still had great fun. I look back fondly on those days of getting myself made up and learning how not to tip over on the revolving stage and huddling into the warmth of the Cratchit family.
In the novel, Mrs. Cratchit brings out the pudding to her family, smelling vaguely of laundry soap because the basin they used was also for laundry. Mr. Cratchit, ever the good husband, proclaims it to be one of the greatest successes of their marriage. I think this moment shows how much the Cratchit value their loved ones, even when it seems like things are dire.
The one part in the Cratchit scene that we did not enjoy was a real Christmas pudding. We had turkey, potatoes and gravy, and other assorted Christmas items, but not the pudding. I, being of German-Italian descent, have never had a Christmas pudding before. I eat Stollen, zimtsterne, and panettone by the bucketful, but never have I had a Christmas pudding. I only recently learned the joys of a mincemeat tart, and I have yet to understand the taste of a fruitcake. (I’m rectifying that this year. Don’t worry. I will finally understand why fruitcake is a controversial subject) So I have decided to try a Christmas pudding and to take you along with me.
The first step in every recipe is getting the ingredients. I was lucky enough to get a good portion of my ingredients on my day off from work, the day Alberta changed its health guidelines of all days. (I have had this post in the works for a long time...can you tell?) So, needless to say, I was rushing. It is tough to track down candied peel and currants in a place like Edmonton. My family and I went to about three shops before I could get what I needed, and even then, I had to make an order to K&K Foodliner because I knew they’d have stuff that I was looking for. (They’re great. I highly recommend the shop. They have just about anything you could need.) Once I collected the ingredients, I waited until the next day to make everything up.
I will make the disclaimer that I used Pen Vogler’s adaptation of Eliza Acton’s Christmas pudding recipe for this experiment. I did not have the patience to play around with historical measurements in a short amount of time. (If you’ve read a historical receipt book, you would know the pain) I shall link here to a copy of the recipe for you to try next Christmas. Or on stir up Sunday if you are feeling very traditional.
First, I made sure I measured all the items ahead of time. It was a very therapeutic process. I felt like Amelie putting her hands in a bin of lentils as I measured bowls of currants and dried fruit. I like to pre-measure my ingredients, as it is much easier to have all my ingredients in front of me when I make a recipe. As Pen Vogler goes into more detail in the video I have linked, I will write my thoughts about making the pudding.
With all my ingredients in front of me, it all stirred up very fast. It was actually rather mundane as there were not many cooking techniques other than mixing and measuring required. According to tradition, this should be done weeks ahead of Christmas, which at the time was not far away. The fact that I am finishing these blog weeks later shows my time management skills in their full glory...meaning that I have none.
After mixing my concoction of fruits, suet, spices, and booze, I poured it into a greased pyrex bowl, covered it with parchment paper and foil, tied it all together and boiled it for three hours. Whilst I waited, I made the traditional punch sauce, which also mainly consisted of booze.
After the boiling process, I opened up my makeshift pudding basin and found the cake submerged in a sea of melted suet fat. It was not exactly pleasant looking. I quickly soaked up the fat because I did not want to wait for it to soak into the pudding and quickly plopped it out onto a serving dish. It had the appearance of a cannonball studded with a variety of fruits and peel, and it smelled like something I had never experienced before. Just very fruity with a hint of mulling spices. As it was hot, and I did not want to dry it out in my pantry for weeks, I served it right away with the punch sauce.
My family, who served as my guinea pigs, all seemed to enjoy it. I liked the pudding's delicate flavour as it was not too rich but still delicious, especially when covered with a boozy sauce. And that was it. It was not especially interesting or different from other boozy desserts, but it did tell me a lot about how we approach historical foods and recipes, which is why I think this does not need to be a festive blog post.
Often historical food is looked down upon as gross or disgusting from a modern lens. While we see a surge in the publication of historical cookbooks like those like Pen Vogler, there remains this stereotype that historical food was bad. I think that is probably because we do not understand the way food was made historically. Unlike today, people did not have the luxury of having a well-stocked grocery store or a hothouse to grow fruits and vegetables. Spices have also traditionally been an expensive commodity, something now we take for granted with our inexpensive selections of spices. My own experiences with reading vague historical recipes show that there was also a large margin for error with cooking due to the inconsistent way foods were measured for recipes. However, this does not mean that all historical recipes are bad; they are just not made equal, much like today. With food history, it is worthwhile to do research and give a historical recipe a try. I promise that not all foods are gruel and posset and that occasionally you can find a treat that you can share with your loved ones for many years to come.
I hope you enjoy the last days of your holidays and wish you a very Happy and Healthy New Year. Please subscribe to our newsletter to keep in touch with us. We promise to try to keep you all entertained.
(My mixing bowls were thrifted by my mother and the other glasses and bowls I got from Plum Home at the Oliver Exchange Building. They are currently out of stock, but I love their shop.)