[Sca-cooks] Steamed Puddings...

[Mark.S Harris]

Johnnae llyn Lewis mentioned:
> C. Anne Wilson spends pages 315-322 of her
> Food and Drink in Britain discussing puddings
> and their history in England. Boiled suet
> puddings took off with the invention of the
> pudding cloth which she dates to a mention in
> 1617. Before that time they had used animal guts.

Well, the following is from my puddings-msg file and I think
it puts the pudding cloth a bit earlier to period:

> I found a pudding recipe copied from A New Booke of Cookerie, by
> J.Murrell, 1615 (a little opp, but not by much)
>
> Cambridge Pudding
>
> Searce grated Bread through a Cullinder, mince it with flower, minct
> Dates, Currins, Nutmeg,Sinamon, and Pepper, minct Suit, new Milke warme,
> fine Sugar, and Egges: Take away some of their whites, worke all
> together. Take halfe the Pudding on the one side, and the other on the
> other side, and make it round like a loafe. Then take Butter, and put it
> in the middest of the Pudding, and the other halfe aloft. Let your Liquor
> boyle, and throw your Pudding in, being tyed in a faire cloth: when it is
> boyled enough cut it in the middest and so serve it in.

There appear to be a number of puddings previous to this one, but they
seem to be boiled in guts or baked over the coals or next to the fire.
Perhaps these others would lend themselves to being molded much better
than the boiled ones.

Stefan li Rous