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Saturday 12 April 2014

Christmas Pudding

Christmas pudding's origins lie with a fourteenth century porridge known as frumenty, a soup like dish with ingredients that included beef, mutton, raisins, wine and spices. It was eaten as a fasting meal in preparation for the Christmas festivities.

By the sixteenth century, the meat was replaced by eggs, breadcrumbs, dried fruit, ale and spirits.

The Puritans banned Christmas pudding in the 1650s. King George I of England, who loved the dish, lifted the ban in 1714.

Christmas pudding became a proper tradition in the nineteenth century when Prince Albert, a fan, introduced it to the royal Christmas.

Prince Albert is thought to have also introduced to Britain the tradition of placing a silver sixpence into a Christmas pudding.

There was a tradition in Victorian England wherein wealthy people of the community gave Christmas treats to carolers on Christmas Eve. One of them was "figgy pudding" which was a raisin or plum dessert that was made in the West Country of England. The second verse of the carol "We Wish you a Merry Christmas" refers to the food.

The making of the Christmas pudding was an annual event in Victorian Britain. There was a tradition that if everyone in the family stirred the pudding mixture, on "Stir-Up Sunday", the fifth Sunday before Christmas, each member of the family would prosper in the coming year. The prayer book for that Sunday says, "Stir up, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the will of they faithful people."

The name Christmas pudding was first recorded in 1858 in a novel by Anthony Trollope.

By Matt Riggott from Edinburgh, Scotland - Christmas Pudding, Wikipedia

It is said the pudding must be made by the 25th Sunday after Trinity.

There are 25 million Christmas puddings consumed every year in the UK

Each family member should stir the pudding from East to West, to honour the three kings.

Lighting the brandy represents Christ’s passion, the holly his crown of thorns.

Source Daily Mail

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