Christmas Pudding
Growing up in 1960s Australia, we adhered to the northern hemisphere’s holiday calendar while living with the southern hemisphere’s opposite seasons. We spent Christmas Day eating hot roast turkey, ham, and pork followed by piping hot Christmas pudding, served with boiled custard. In Australia, Christmas is a summer holiday, and temperatures above 100 degrees weren’t unusual.
I believed that one of the benefits of moving to Queens from Australia would include the chance to eat Christmas pudding at a seasonally appropriate time of year. Little did I know that Americans don’t eat Christmas pudding.
My mother believed that the Christmas pudding needed to mature, that is, it was made three months ahead wrapped in a pudding cloth and hung in a dark cupboard until the big day arrived. First, she boiled the cloth, then she sprinkled it with flour. She dropped the pudding dough onto the flour from a wooden spoon and wrapped the cloth around it like a chocolate truffle wrapper. The pudding boiled for six hours allowing the flour to form a soft crust and protect it from the water. On Christmas Day out from the cupboard it came, boiled again, and served hot, weather be damned.
Christmas feasting began early in the morning. By the time we got to the pudding we were all already overheated–––and overstuffed. There wasn’t a kid in all Australia who would say no to a serve of pudding.
Christmas pudding, also known as plum pudding – plum being an old-fashioned English word for raisins – was rich, fruity, and tasty. More importantly, it contained money. Every year my mum would add three pence (pronounced thruppence) and six pence coins into the pudding batter.
Australia adopted decimal currency; They replaced pounds, shilling, and pence with dollars and cents in the mid-1960s. The old money was made of silver, but the new five cent coin that replaced our six pence was toxic, and therefore unsuitable for the pudding. This was a factor for the “no” side of the national debate that preceded this change in currency. Many Australians worried about how we would get through Christmas without the usual pudding financial bonus.
When the dreaded currency switched my mother was defiant. She saved a stash of the old silver money and each Christmas we’d cash our 3 and 6p coins for “real” money. The thrill of taking a bite and hitting silver never got old. Until well into her 80s, she made a pudding for the day, and one each for her kids to enjoy though the season. Not having them now is just another reminder that she’s gone, and I’m a long way from my hometown.
We Aussies still love our climate inappropriate Christmas puddings. And to my relief, it is possible to find Christmas pudding in Queens (see links below). I serve mine with hard sauce, a delicious, sweet, boozy solid butter sauce that melts into the warm pudding, rendering it even more moist and delicious.
Christmas puddings in Queens
Key Food
Some stores have has Crosse & Blackwell Plum Pudding, English-Style Brandied for 14 ounce.
Online sources for Christmas pudding
Willian Sonoma
Fortnum & Mason Christmas Pudding, $34.95
English Tea Store
Cole's English Privilege Christmas Pudding, 24 ounce (680 grams) $39.99 (full price), $33.19 (Sale Price)
World Market®
Christmas Pudding SKU#561649, $12.99
Vermont Country Store
Christmas Plum Pudding, Item # 77476 14 ounce, $20.95
