Figgy Pudding | A Victorian Christmas Tradition

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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza

DISH NAME
ORIGINAL 1845 RECIPE (From Modern Cookery for Private Families)
The Author’s Christmas Pudding.
To three ounces of flour, and the same weight of fine, lightly-grated bread-crumbs, add six of beef kidney-suet, chopped small, six of raisins weighed after they are stoned, six of well-cleaned currants, four ounces of minced apples, five of sugar, two of candied orange-rind, half a teaspoonful of nutmeg mixed with pounded mace, a very little salt, a small glass of brandy, and three whole eggs. Mix and beat these ingredients well together, tie them tightly in a thickly floured cloth, and boil them for three hours and a half. We can recommend this as a remarkably light small rich pudding: it may be served with German, wine, or punch sauce.

MODERN RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
- 3 oz (85g) Flour
- 3 oz (85g) Bread Crumbs
- 6 oz (170g) Beef Suet (Lard or Crisco will work as well)
- 6 oz (170g) stoned Raisins
- 6 oz (170g) Currants
- 4 oz (113g) Minced Apples
- 5 oz (142g) Brown Sugar
- 2 oz (57g) Candied Peel
- ½ teaspoon Nutmeg and mace
- A few grains of Salt
- 3 oz (88ml) Brandy
- 3 Eggs

METHOD
1. Boil the pudding cloth for 20 minutes. Then carefully remove it from the pot and lay it out flat. Spread suet, lard or butter across it and rub in a liberal amount of flour.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix. Then form into a ball and place in the middle of the pudding cloth. Gathering the cloth tightly around it, twist the cloth at the 'neck' then wrap it with a string several times and tie tightly around it.
3. Boil a large pot of water with an upside down plate on the bottom of the pot. Set the pudding in the boiling water and let boil for 3 1/2 hours. Check often and add more boiling water when necessary.
4. Remove pudding from the water and allow to dry before unwrapping. This can be served right away or aged for several weeks/months.

Punch sauce for Sweet Puddings
This may be served with custard, plain bread, and plum-puddings. With two ounces of sugar and a quarter of a pint of water, boil very gently the rind of half a small lemon, and somewhat less of orange-peel, from fifteen to twenty minutes; strain out the rinds, thicken the sauce with an ounce and a half of butter and nearly a teaspoonful of flour, add a half-glass of brandy, the same of white wine, two thirds of a glass of rum, with the juice of half an orange, and rather less of lemon-juice: serve the sauce very hot, but do not allow it to boil after the spirit is stirred in.
- 2oz Sugar
- ¼ pint Water
- Lemon & Orange Rind
- 1 ½ oz Butter
- 1 Teaspoon Flour
- ½ Wineglassful Brandy
- ½ Wineglassful White Wine
- ⅔ Wineglassful Rum
- Orange & Lemon Juice

MUSIC CREDITS

Rondo for harp - Mike Harper

#tastinghistory #christmaspudding #figgypudding

[TastingHistory]

What's everyone's favorite part of Christmas? Mine is definitely the music, which is probably why this is my favorite episode yet!

[BadSkeelz]

"Her sauces are liquidy because there's a LOT of alcohol in them..."

Guess that explains the etymology behind being "sauced."

[Nickelplate]

"Bedight" has a more modern relative that we might be more likely to know. "Bedecked" is the newer version. The CK and the GH were pronounced quite alike in English a long time ago. An even more modern alternative that comes from "bedecked" that almost anyone would know is "decked out."

[Ablorktoremember]

I used 'bedight' in my D&D game this week and found out that two of my players also watch Max.

[merindymorgenson]

I cracked up when you sniffed the book. It’s one of the first things I do when I get a used book. It smells like coming home.

[rdr]

You're wrong about Scrooge. He's had a total change of heart! He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world! I'm sure he loves this video!

[amandataylor]

"Oh those crazy brits." 😂

"Now let's light this thing on fire!" 😳😳😳

[kaytiej]

"I love the smell of [old] books. Does anyone else do that?"
Why do you think I watch you? It's like walking into an historical library each week!
I used to help make 2000 plum puddings for fundraising. It was done by hand from start to finish. The best part was pleating up the cloth and tying it off. We sat in the same room as 9 boilers, pleating up, in temperatures around 30 C.

[DemeterMedi]

My favourite part would be the the lazy days. With lots of leftovers, days spent in pyjamas, watching movies and playing board games with the family.

[Queen-of-Swords]

Subbed. As an English person, let me tell you, my other half still puts £1 coins in our Christmas Pudding (which is what this pudding is called these days). It is an acquired taste, after a full Christmas dinner. If you all sit down for 2 hours it is best eaten at that type of interval, which of course, it never is. Children routinely hate this pudding, as it is nothing like modern desserts.
In the old days, being boiled in a copper, it WOULD have smelled like laundry as that was the primary use for coppers - boiling washing. Infact, most houses would not have had a copper, as the fuel required to keep one going meant most could not afford it. So they took their washing to wash houses instead. Houses that had coppers usually had outbuildings in the garden, and some boarding houses had a copper in the yard that would be shared by several families.
I am not sure whether people took their puddings to the wash house to cook 😆 sounds emminently possible. Wash houses were community places where women met to gossip, let alone do laundry. In much the same way as a bread oven used to be a community asset.
Anyway, I'm 48, my Grandma would make this pudding around September and keep it under her bed until the big day. It was a matter of some boasting how soon before the event you made it.
I'm afraid we buy ours from the supermarket, but I spend enough time cooking dinners from scratch without doing things like this. There is certainly no financial advantage to make your own given the expense of the ingredients.

[lynchie]

i live in aus, but my family always does an old fashioned english christmas dinner every year (which is unusual, its summer during so everyone eats summery foods for christmas instead) and we always have a christmas pudding. we've never made it ourselves, we order in advance. dunking it in brandy and setting it alight is compulsory lmao, it looks so magical and makes a wonderful smell. we eat it with custard, vanilla ice cream, or thick cream, often all three at once

[micaylabirondo]

Will you please do medieval mincemeat pies for Christmas? I really want to see how they're done and how they taste because I'd love to make some!

[mzulfiqar]

Just like RNGesus said:
"You my child, you should be the one with all the figgy pudding"

[catherineescobar]

The Snapdragon game also appears in Agatha Christie’s book, “Halloween Party”.

[lhfirex]

Steeped in brandy? A very merry Christmas indeed!

[Jay-lnco]

"Figgy pudding" sounds like an insult from a Guy Ritchie movie.
"Check it out, guv'nor, got ourselves a couple of figgy puddin's, don't we luv?"

[alayzzia]

This video has inspired me to pull out my grandmother's Christmas pudding recipe. There to be made in March and nursed until Christmas. Thank you for giving me a nudge

[Djinn_Entonic]

In my country we do something called "Pan de Pascua" (literal translation: Easter bread). It is like a fruit cake, but it has a particular flavour that is typical and unique.

[ΤζένγκιςΧάαν]

Here in Greece in new years day we make a cake that has inside a golden coin (most people putt fake coins nowadays) and supposendly if you get the piece with the coin you will have good luck, it is called the St. Basil's pie

[geissler]

Poe was also a fan of 'bedight'. He uses it in his poem Eldorado: "Gaily bedight, a gallant knight..."