Christmas is well-known for its festive celebration. People are all busy preparing their Christmas hampers and Christmas baskets and wrapping their Christmas gifts. Housewives, together with their kids, are busy decorating their home with different Christmas ornaments. They are also busy preparing different kinds of Christmas recipes and desserts. And one of the most popular Christmas recipes being prepared during Christmas is plum pudding.
Pudding is a dessert that is simply delicious and distinctive because of its sweet aroma. It is a well-loved dessert by many English and part of their Christmas tradition, as pudding is serve every December 25, a custom practice by many household even today.
History of Christmas Plum Pudding
The history of pudding making and its association with the Christmas celebration goes back to the medieval times or the 13th to 15th century in England, when the church is still powerful. The Roman church made a decree ordering the people to prepare pudding every 25th, after trinity. The pudding according to the Catholic Church should be prepared with at least 13 ingredients. This is the first association of pudding to Christmastime.
The Meaning of Plum Pudding
The Church emphasis the used of 13 ingredients, since it represent the 12 apostles and Christ. Additionally, when preparing the English cake every member of the family must take turn to stir starting from the east in honor of the Magi and its journey.
Take note, pudding preparation may have started in the medieval time but the recipes for the sweet English plum pudding as a dessert appears during the middle of the 17th century. The recipe is no longer for preserving meat but as a dessert, served on Christmas. The form of cooking the pudding also shortened as time passes by and new ingredients introduced as well.
Furthermore, the pudding origins is traced to the 14th century when it was not yet, served as a dessert or confection but used for preserving meat every season. You see, before there is a fodder shortage during this time and so, livestock surplus slaughtered during autumn. In order to preserve the meat, people keep them in a pastry with different dried fruits. The dried fruits were use as preservative.
The plum pudding history in England is very colorful, since it was not even a dessert until the Victorian era. By the way, the association of pudding to Christmas may have started in the medieval time but it becomes a tradition when king George 1 also known as the pudding king requested it as part of the royal meal on his first Christmas celebration in England.
The sweet pudding that we all know and enjoy today did not appear until the 18th century, since before it was only used as preservation for meat and even enjoyed as mince pie as a meal and not as a dessert. In truth, plum pudding as a dessert occurs only after a writer introduced the recipe in Christmas and introduced it as the “Christmas pudding” in the cookbook.
