SC - Yorkshire Pudding

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Bonne of Traquair wrote:
> 
> How about this then: Doesn't some reference just Post period (Markham?) have
> recipes for 'dredging' roasting meat with a type of batter? When reading
> those recipes, I picture a yorkshire pudding type product developing, even
> though it might not have gone to the hall.
> 
> Some of the batter would have dripped into the dripping pan with the fat and
> cooked, the end product being somewhat like a modern Yorkshire pudding.  The
> boy doing the roasting or some other servant might well have eaten it, or
> passed it on to an even lower class servant to eat.  The pig herder if no
> one else.  Sometime between then and when Yorkshire pudding appears, the
> servants food by accident became something done on purpose and finally also
> done by (or for) the upper classes on purpose.
> 
> The definition of pudding changed late or just after period from something
> cooked in the guts to a doughy mass cooked in a cloth or basin with the
> meat. 

As far as I can recall Markham instructs us to sprinkle either flour or
fine bread crumbs (I forget which) on the meat after basting, to form a
crust. I don't recall any reference to using a batter unless you count
the Taillevent version of endoring/glazing, which, IIRC, includes flour
like a fritter batter. However, English versions and even most French
ones I've seen, do not, and are more like an egg wash.

> And also, amongst the working class, serving the pudding  before the
> meat in order to reduce appetite and make the meat feed more people became
> pretty standard. So, if some families in Yorkshire made this product on
> purpose, the name could easily have been applied at that time period.

I seem to recall reading somewhere odd, maybe something in the works of
Lewis Carroll, a reference to a big controversy in England concerning
the order of courses and the appearance of the pudding. This would
appear to suggest that there was no universal practice in England as of
the 1870's.
> 
> Which doesn't mean Yorkshire pudding as we know it existed, just that the
> beginnings of it seem to have been in those dripping pans. But to keep
> people from deciding Yorkshire pudding IS period, maybe I should have kept
> these thoughts to myself.

The beginnings were indeed probably in the dripping pans, which were
still being used for roasting meat until, in some places, the early 20th
century. Even thouigh such pans existed and were used in period, it
doesn't mean Yorkshire pudding, under any name, is of equal age.

Elinor Fettiplace, BTW, has recipes for several batter puddings, some
baked in pie plates, some baked in pie tins lined with things like caul
fat, and some cooked in guts.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com