Christmas Puddings

Lim
You found one that only Commonwealth folk would understand

I still use a shilling

Christmas pudding
Christmas puddings are often dried out on hooks for weeks prior to serving in order to enhance the flavour. This pudding has been prepared with a traditional cloth rather than a basin.
Christmas pudding is the dessert traditionally served on Christmas day in Britain and Ireland, as well as in some Commonwealth countries including AUSTRALIA. It has its origins in England, and is sometimes known as plum pudding, though this can also refer to other kinds of boiled pudding involving a lot of dried fruit.
Basics
Many households have their own recipe for Christmas pudding, preferably handed down the family; it is probable that there are also regional variations.
Christmas pudding is a boiled, or rather steamed, pudding, massively heavy with dried fruit and nuts, and usually made with suet. It should be very dark in appearance - effectively black - and moist with brandy and other alcohol (some recipes call for dark beers such as mild, stout or porter).
Traditionally, Christmas puddings were boiled in a pudding cloth, and they are often represented as round, but at least since the beginning of the twentieth century they have usually been prepared in basins.
The wish and other traditions


Traditionally, every member of the household stirs the pudding, while making a wish.

This Christmas pudding is decorated with skimmia rather than holly.
Traditionally puddings were made on or immediately after the Sunday "next before Advent", i.e. five weeks before Christmas. The Collect for that Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, as it was used from the sixteenth century (and still is in traditional churches), reads:

"Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"

The association of stirring and fruit was irresistible and the day became known as "Stir-up Sunday". Everyone in the household, or at least every child, was required to give the mixture a stir, and to make a wish while doing so.
It was common practice to include small silver coins in the pudding mixture, which could be kept by the person whose serving included them. The usual choice was a silver 3d piece, or a sixpence. The coin was believed to bring wealth in the coming year. However this practice fell away once real silver coins were not available, as it was believed that alloy coins would taint the pudding. There have been a few instances of this practice in more recent memory, at some primary schools and other institutions as late as the 1990s, but in the current litigious climate the practice has stopped for fear of being sued if a child bites a coin by mistake.

Other tokens are also known to have been included, such as a tiny wishbone (to bring good luck) a silver thimble (for thrift) or an anchor (to symbolise safe harbour)

Once turned out of its basin, the Christmas pudding is traditionally decorated with a spray of holly, then, in some parts of the country, doused in brandy, flamed (or 'fired'), and brought to the table ceremonially - where it should be greeted with a round of applause. In some houses the lights are turned out as the pudding is brought in amid a halo of purple brandy flames (this is related to the Christmas tradition of snap-dragons). It can be eaten with brandy butter, rum butter, cream (lemon cream is excellent) or custard and is often sprinkled with caster sugar (the fall of the sugar on triangular slices resembling the fall of snow on a pitched roof, or snowy mountain tops.

After Christmas
Christmas puddings have very good keeping properties and many families keep one back from Christmas to be eaten at another celebration later in the year, often at Easter. Some take the practice so far as to make each year's pudding the previous Christmas. Others claim that this impairs the flavour, but admit that a well-made pudding will keep at least adequately for a year.
Christmas puddings can be bought ready made and cooked, but unless they come from a luxury store these are likely to be a poor substitute for a home-cooked pudding. Nowadays, many people find the Christmas pudding too rich and heavy (especially after lots of rich food on the morning of Christmas, then a starter and a large main course for the main meal), but most families have at least one member who will demand that a "proper" Christmas pudding be cooked.

For the most part- They wouldn't know a christmas pudding if they stepped in it.

Remember there are exceptions to everything

Most I have spoken to thought we were talking about fruit cake

Lim

Don Quixote is one of my favourite shows

in it Don Quixote is known as a KNIGHT ERRANT or a KNIGHT in training. I actually have a businnes card which says KNIGHT ERRANT
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Used Cars• Rot Gut • Manure •Nails•Land •Fly Swatters
Racing Forms •Bongo Drums• Repossessed Coffins• Flies

RICHARD
KNIGHT ERRANT• BOY SCOUT • CHAPLAIN
MEDICAL CONSULTANT • COIN COLLECTOR


Wars Fought • Revolutions Started • Elixirs Bottled
Governments Run • Tigers Tamed • Babies Blessed
Bridges Destroyed •Saloons Emptied • Elephants Bred
Computers Verified • Chimneys Swept • Uprisings Quelled

In the main,well said Terry......

We may all speak the same language but there are things that we differ in from place to place. Just like your thanks giving, it was not that long ago that I cotton on to what it was all about.

quote:

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Originally posted by rggoodie

Christmas pudding
Christmas puddings have very good keeping properties and many families keep one back from Christmas to be eaten at another celebration later in the year, often at Easter. Some take the practice so far as to make each year's pudding the previous Christmas. Others claim that this impairs the flavour, but admit that a well-made pudding will keep at least adequately for a year.

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Thank you for the information rggoodie, while reading this I was thinking of our fruit cake, and the similarities each of them have. I have fruit cake that must be at least a year old, and if they are waiting for me to eat it, it will git a lot older yet!

Christmas Pudding is alive and well in Texas ours gets a sixpence and is served with a brandy butter.