Now bring out the figgy pudding! Or shold I say, the plum pudding?

Plum pudding doesn\’t seem to be very popular in the USA. Or perhaps I never looked carefully enough.  I remember having it only once, as a teenager. A cookbook I had included a recipe for plum pudding that used mincemeat. I tried it; and it was pretty good.

The recipe required baking the pudding in the oven, if I remember correctly. I used a round, glass casserole dish. Some recipes say to put the pudding mixture in a mold of some sort, and steam cook it for several hours. Long ago a plum pudding would be boiled.

Read A Christmas Carol, and you\’ll find a description of the Cratchit family\’s Christmas dinner; including plum pudding. The custom then was to pour some brandy atop the pudding just before serving; and light it! Maybe people still do it; but to me it seems an unnecessary fire hazard, however festive it may look.

With fired-up brandy or without, may you enjoy your figgy pudding!