Mrs Hudson says… Christmas treats from history

Every month, Mrs Hudson along with her three children and Dinky the Irish Wolfhound investigate the best family and dog friendly heritage attractions that the UK has to offer.

This month, as it is the season to eat, drink and be merry, I thought the kids and I could explore some of the UK’s historical Christmas treats and see how they compare to the Christmas food we know and love today. I gave each child an era to research and they came up with the following: a medieval vegetable fritter, a Georgian pudding and a Victorian side, so, to the kitchen we went!

By a very democratic vote (they went in chronological order) they chose what we would start with, so after a visit to the shop, we got ourselves prepared to make some historic Christmas treats.

Our first dish, as chosen by Elwood, was a vegetable fritter that was popular as part of a medieval Christmas dinner.

The ingredients:
500g flour
1 egg
300ml beer
1 parsnip
2 carrots
6 apples

Method:
Start by preparing your veg and fruit, peel and core the apples, parsnips and carrots and then chop into small cubes. Put them into a pan and cover with water, then boil until cooked.

Once the veg and apples are cooked, drain and mash with a fork or something similar. The twins very much enjoyed this part of the process! In a second bowl, mix the flour, egg and beer together to make a batter and once it is combined, add the mashed vegetable mix and stir together.

Heat some oil in a pan until it is hot and then drop spoonfuls of the batter, cooking on both sides until golden – this is a job best done by the adults! When they’re all cooked, plate them up, the original recipe Elwood found suggested serving them with a sprinkling of salt and to eat hot, I didn’t mind them and thought they were quite flavoursome, but Florence found them a bit boring.

Next up was our Georgian dish, a recipe for the Duke of Buckingham’s favourite pudding with a sherry sauce. This one was found by Florence and was one I was particularly looking forward to.

The ingredients:
For the pudding
450g suet (we used vegetarian suet, but you can use either)
125g raisins
2 eggs
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
125g flour
50g sugar

For the sauce
75g melted butter
3 tbsp sherry
3 tbsp sugar

Method:
I was looking forward to this one as steamed puddings were a big thing in my house growing up – the kids have only ever experienced the microwavable ones you can get in the supermarket. I had to try and locate a pudding bowl and pudding cloth! If you want to try this one, don’t worry there are other ways to make a steamed pudding at home without having to go quite so old school.

In a bowl, mix all the ingredients for the pudding together until combined. Once this is done, put to the side and dampen your pudding cloth, flour it well and pour the mixture into the middle. Tie tightly and drop it into a pan of boiling water where you will need to leave it to simmer for three hours.

When it is almost time to serve, make your sauce by combining all the ingredients together in a bowl. Once the pudding is cooked, portion it up and pour the sauce over each one. This one was much more successful – all the kids devoured it and I had to stop myself having a second serving! It is a lot of faff, but I would happily make it again as a Christmas treat.

Our final dish was from the Victorian era and was chosen by Bertie. It’s a Victorian  style plum pudding which is a bit of a mixture between both Elwood and Florence’s suggestions. Even more interesting, this recipe came from a book aimed at the lower classes and is said to feed 16 people.

Ingredients:
450g boiled and mashed potatoes
225g boiled and mashed carrots
450g flour
225g suet (again, we used the vegetarian suet)
350g sugar
450g currants
450g raisins
2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp salt
2 eggs
1 glass of sherry

Method:
We started out by boiling the potatoes and carrots and once cooked, mashed them and mixed together. Sift the flour and the spices and then add, along with the other ingredients to the mashed vegetables.

Get the pudding cloth back out and dampen it, sprinkle some flour into it and then add the mixture. Tie it tightly and boil for four hours.

The recipe suggested serving it with a sweet white sauce, but we were a little historically inaccurate and used ice cream instead. It was a very strange texture and none of us were really sure what we made of it, but it was interesting to see how families ate generations ago.

If you want to give these a try and you don’t have a pudding cloth, you can easily make one out of tin foil and grease proof paper. Cut a square of tin foil out and then a slightly smaller one of grease proof paper. Place the grease proof paper on top of the aluminium foil and make a pleat by folding a crease in the centre of both the paper and the foil. Then place it over your pudding bowl and tie it with string, then add to your pan of boiling water.

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