Tagged ‘cooking’

Puddinggrass

May 24th, 2013 by KM Wall
Hedeoma pulgiodes - false pudding grass

Hedeoma pulgiodes – false pudding grass

Mentha pulegium - Pudding Grass!

Mentha pulegium – Pudding Grass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parkinson Paradisus 477 Pennyroyall..vsed to be put into puddings,..and therefore in diuers places they know it by no other name then Pudding-grasse.

Now, dear Mr. Parkinson, how is that this herb that is named for it’s use  in puddings so seldom shows up in pudding recipes?

And frankly – GOOD THING:

Pregnant women and children under the age of 15 should not use this herb.  Do not use oil extract orally as it is highly toxic.  Do not exceed dosage amounts.

With any herb, there is the risk of an allergic reaction. Small children and pregnant women should use additional caution when considering the use of herbal remedies.

Which begs another question – how can the people of the past get away eating and otherwise ingesting things that we now know to be unsafe?

  1. Toxic load is different for different people in different times and in different place. Possibly there was a less toxic form of the herb available or perhaps we’re now exposed to things that make what was once inert, very dangerous OR
  2. When the leading cause of death is ‘suddenly’ appropriate cause and effect relationships aren’t always noted.

So this is a caveat – before we continue in the garden, before we try things merely because someone in the past wrote it down, before we try to be authentic in every detail in recreating old recipes, we must be safe.

Safety First.

Live to tell about it.

All the lovely herbals and books of medicine and even the cookbooks and commonplace books and receipt-books of the past are a great place to start BUT find a good modern herbal reference and use it often before ingesting anything.

There are websites (American Botanical Council or ABC) and books (John Lust The Herb Book is a personal quick and easy reference guide). Check them out before you eat! When in doubt, DON’T.

 

Skull and Crossbones - warning of  poison  AND sign of Cemetary entrance

Skull and Crossbones – warning of poison AND sign of Cemetery entrance

 

“256. A Pennyroyall Puding.

Take 6 Eggs beat them very well and halfe a pint of creame one Nutmeg grated a litle sugar and salt then take a good quantity of parsley penyroyall Marygold flowrs shred very small put them to the creame and Eggs with 4 spoonfulls of sack half a p[ound] of Corance and almost a p[ound] of Beefe suet shred a topeny loafe grated stir all well together then flowr the Bagge or pot tye it up close and it will be boyled in an hours time[.]

for the sauce take a litle rose water and sugar a litle vinegar and butter beat together poure it upon it then serve it in this is esteemed a good puding[.]”

-John Evelyn, Cook. C.Driver, ed. Prospect Books, 1997. p. 143.

For the Pudding, sans pennyroyal….

6 eggs, beaten

1 cup cream

nutmeg, sugar, salt

parsley and caledula flowers (not French marigolds, which taste as nasty as they smell – look them up…)

a little wine (a sack is not a bag, although sack in a bag pudding sounds like the punchline of a 17th century riddle)

suet and grated bread, I mean Bread Crumbs.

This is one pudding that can be boiled in a bag or a basin – basin being a category the I hadn’t noticed in Robert May. hmmmm.

The rosewater, beaten butter and vinegar sauce sounds very very very nice indeed. Not too much rosewater or it will taste like the soaps your Nana put out for company smells.

 

Bagge Pudinge

May 23rd, 2013 by KM Wall

‘Take thicke cream’. When a recipe starts this way, you know that it’s going to be good. Maybe not ‘take a pound of butter’ good, but certainly good enough, possibly very indeed.

The question then is – just what is thicke cream in the seventeenth century?

This is Fresh Cream - not the same as 17th century thicke cream - but good in it's own way

This is Fresh Cream – not the same as 17th century thicke cream – but good in it’s own way

The slightly darker stuff floating on top is cream and thick - the bottle concept is modern and not early modern

The slightly darker stuff floating on top is cream and thick – the bottle concept is modern and not early modern

 

Cream didn't come in cartons in the 17th century, but this is how we think of cream now.

Cream didn’t come in cartons in the 17th century, but this is how we think of cream now. Heavy and thicke may very well be the same things.

Snow Cream, also known as Snow  - not thicke cream, but very good, and more photogenic then other sorts of cream

Snow Cream, also known as Snow – not thicke cream, but very good, and more photogenic then other sorts of cream

 

 

 

 

 

Clotted cream - very thick cream, and the stuff that cream teas are made of...oh, to be homesick for the Cornwall and Devon, and I don't even play someone who is from there!

Clotted cream – very thick cream, and the stuff that cream teas are made of…oh, to be homesick for the Cornwall and Devon, and I don’t even play someone who is from there!

An aside about clotted or clouted cream:

In  The Shepheardes Calendar,  by Edmund Spenser (1579) under November:

She while she was, (that was a woful Word to fain)
For Beauty’s Praise and Pleafance had no Peer:
So well she couth the Shepherds entertain
With Cakes and Cracknels, and fuch Country Cheer,
Ne would she scorn the simple Shepherd’s Swain;
For she would call him often heam,
And give him Curds and clouted Cream.
O heavy Herse!

And give him Curds and clouted Cream – THAT”S Entertainment  – and true love!

To make a Bagge Pudinge.

Take thicke cream and make yt somewhat hotter than bloud warme, then take halfe a dossen egges and beate them well and mingle them wth yor Creame then ad to yt a little parsely and winter savory cut very smale and some nutmegges suger and a little salte then put to yt as much Crumes of bread and fine flower as will make yt thicker than batter for pan-Cakes, then wett yor bagge in cold water and put yt in and when yor water boyles put him into yt, yt must not bee boyled wth meate but alone in fayre water.

- Elinor Fettiplace’s Receipt Book: Elizabethan Country House Cooking. Hilary Spurling (1986) p. 46

May Pudding Baggage

May 21st, 2013 by KM Wall
Robert May

Robert May

 

May. Robert May, that is. Robert May The Accomplist Cook author. And what do I mean by Baggage? Why, the things you use to put bag puddings in!

But first,  a word, or two – actually a little poem – in praise of Robert May

Whats wouldst thou view but in one face

all hospitalitie, the race

of those that for the GUSTO stand,

whose table, a whole Ark command

of  Nature plentie, wouldst they see

this sight peruse MAYS booke, ’tis hee.

This is the little ditty in the frontispiece underneath his portrait. Let us all stand for GUSTO!

Back to baggage.

In The Accomplist Cook, which was first published in 1660 , and continued to be revised and printed even after Mr May’s death, there are chapters devoted to different kinds of foods. This is a HUGE and pleasant change from the way many  earlier cookbooks were set-up, where there was a continuation, rather in the way they might come to the table. That is there would be several boiled meats (which might include chicken) and then fricassees (which may or may not include chicken) and then baked meats (which are pies) and again there might be chicken there, and then some sweets and then maybe some roasted things that got forgotten with the other roasted things, and then sauces for the roasted things…..and there are no real category headings.

Mr May has sections, such as

Section 7

The most Excellent Ways of making all Sorts of Puddings.

Way cool.

In this section (because there are other puddings in different places, but only a few).  In looking only at the boiled puddings (not the baked ones, or the ones baked in a pie or the fried ones), puddings are boiled in the following things:

1)    Guts. Formes. Skins (we’ll come back to these, but remember, the oldest forms of puddings are guts)

2)    Bag, Napkin, Cloth

  1. Bag :5
  2. Bag or napkin: 2
  3. Napkin: 11
  4. Napkin or cloth: 1
  5. Cloth: 6
  6. Napkin or paunch: 1
  7. Total: 26 specific mentions.
Flemish 17th century Napkin at the MFA

Flemish 17th century Napkin at the MFA

Table napkin

  • Flemish, early 17th century
Flanders
Dimensions
102 x 70.5 cm (40 3/16 x 27 3/4 in.)
Medium or Technique
Linen damask
Classification
Textiles

This is a table napkin – this is more suitable, although to use something so lovely for a pudding would be a pity – there were plainer napkins.  Notice the size -  40 inches by 28 inches – and it’s made of linen. If a pudding had been made in this napkin, there would be a greasy circle in the middle, reminiscent of the image in the Shroud of Turin.

 

 

 

To make  a Quaking Pudding either boild or baked.

Otherwayes.

Take a penny white loaf , pare off the crust, and slice the crumb, steep in a quart of good thick cream warmed, some beaten nutmeg, six eggs, whereof but two whites, and some salt. Sometimes you may use boild currans, or boild raisins.

If to bake, make it a little stiffer, sometimes add saffron; on flesh days use beef-suet, or marrow; (or neither). for  a boild pudding butter the napkin being first weted in water, and binde it up like a ball, an hour will boil it.

        1671. Robert May. The Accomplist Cook. Third edition. p. 180.

This is a money bag - this is NOT a suitable thing to boil a pudding in

This is a money bag – this is NOT a suitable thing to boil a pudding in, although the shape is good…

Bag of Pudding

May 18th, 2013 by KM Wall

Not just any bag – the pudding bag! Pudding in a bag? Isn’t that messy? Not if you know how it’s done.

Possible the most famous bag pudding is the Christmas Pudding that Mrs Cratchit serves in Dicken’s The Christmas Carol:

“Mrs Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear witnesses — to take the pudding up and bring it in… Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper which smells like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.”

 

 

Christmas Pudding - IN A BAG

Christmas Pudding – IN A BAG

Often the bag is a linen napkin ……. bag is a verb as well as a noun…..

Bag Pudding (OED)

[f. BAGn.1 + PUDDING.]

1. A pudding boiled in a bag.
1598 in FLORIO. 1600HEYWOOD1 Edw. IV, Wks. 1874 I 47 Thou shalt be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a bag-pudding.

1641W. CARTWRIGHTOrdinary II. i, A solemn son of Bagpudding and Pottage.

And if there’s bag pudding, could pudding bag be far behind?

 

Puddingbag (OED)

A bag in which a pudding is boiled. Also transf. and fig. Cf. pudding-poke.

c1597 T. DELONEY Jack of Newberie (1619) iv. sig. G3, The other maide..with the perfume in the pudding-bagge, flapt him about the face.

1626 in NARES (Halliw.), [A piece of Sail-cloth] about half a yard long, of the breadth of a pudding-bag.

And now for what very well be the most comprehensive pudding recipe in any English cookbook ever, no matter the century. I have added the numbered and letter divisions to help you keep track of the possibilities:

Oatmeal Puddings, otherwise of Fish or Flesh Blood.

Take a quart of whole Oatmeal, steep it in warm Milk overnight, and then drain the groats from it, boil them in a quart or three  pints of good Cream; then the Oatmeal being boyled and cold have Tyme, Penny-royal, Parslee, Spinnage, Savory, Endive, Marjoram, Sorrel, Succory, and Strawberry-leaves of each a little quantity, chop them fine and put them to the Oatmeal, with some Fennel-seeds, Pepper, Cloves, Mace, and Salt,

  1. boyl it in a Napkin,

  2. or bake it in a Dish,

  3. Pie,

  4. or Guts:

    1. sometimes of the former Pudding you may leave out some of the herbs, and add these, Pennyroyal, Savory, Leeks, a good bigg Onion, Sage, Ginger, Nutmeg, Pepper, Salt, either for fish or flesh dayes, with Butter or Beef-suet, boyled or baked in Dish, Napkin, or Pie

1661. William Rabisha.  The Whole Body of Cookery Dissected. p. 184.

 

Rag Pudding - a 20th century dish that may hearken back to the 19th century, but is a pudding in a pie

Rag Pudding – a 20th century dish that may hearken back to the 19th century, but is a pudding in a pie

 

You are he that did eat the pudding and the bag.

Proverbs Collected by J. H. Esqr. London 1659

Gilding the Lily

May 9th, 2013 by KM Wall
Asparagus - formerly family Liliaceae; now Amaryllidaceae

Asparagus – formerly family Liliaceae; now Amaryllidaceae

The alternate title to this post: Drawing Lesson.

Lily

Lily

Lily, in this case, refers to the plant family that asparagus belongs. Or did belong. Before things were reclassified.  Asparagus, it seems isn’t really a lily.Anymore. Once, like onion and garlic, all part of one big Liliaceace, sperage/sparagus/sparrow-grass/asparagus  is over in the Asparagaceae train, and the onions and garlic are on the Amaryllidaceae bus.

 And what can make that spearage better? Butter!

 

1400 This is titled "Making Butter" but she's not. She's making medicine, or maybe pesto, but one does not make butter with a mortar and pestle

1499 This is titled “Making Butter” but she’s not. She’s making medicine, or maybe pesto, but one does not make butter with a mortar and pestle

Buttered Sparagus

Take two hundred of sparagus, scrape the roots clean and wash them, then take the heads of an hundred and lay them even, bind them hard up into a bundle, and so likewise of the other hundred; then take a large skillet of fair water, when it boils put them in, and boil them up quick with some salt; being boil’d drain them, and serve them with beaten butter and salt about the dish, or butter and vinegar.

1678, Robert May. The Accomplist Cook. (4th ed) Falconwood Press:1992. p. 255.

Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce - a butter based sauce...

Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce – a butter based sauce…

Here are several beaten butter/thick butter/drawn butter English sauces:

How to draw your butter thicke.

Put to every pound of butter, sixe spoonfulls of vinegar, a branch of Rosemary, a little whole mace, & a few cloves, put them into an earthen pipkin or a pewter dish, and set them vpon a few coales, and when the butter begins to melt, take a ladle and powre it vp a high till it be melted, and then it will bee as thicke as creame, and serve to butter any fresh fish.

-         Murrell, John. A Booke of Cookerie. London: 1621. Falconwood Press:1990. p. 32.

English butter

English butter

To draw Butter.

Take your butter and cut it into thin slices, put it in a dish, then put it upon the coals where it may melt leasurely, stir it often, and when it is melted put in two or three spoonfuls of water, or Vinegar, which you will, then stir and beat it untill it be thick.

-         1653. W.I. A True Gentlewomans Delight. Falconwood Press (1991) p. 54.

 

To draw butter of only use in sauces.

Take the butter and cut it into thin slices, put it into a dish, then put it upon the coals where it may melt leisurely, stir it often and when it is melted put in two or three spoonfuls of water or Vinegar, which you please, then stire it and beat it until it be thick. If the colour keep white it is good, but if it look yellow and curdly in boiling it is noght, and not fit to be used to this purpose.

- 1664. Mrs Cromwell’s Cookery Book. (1983) p. 77.

This all sounds an awful lot like Buerre blanc, this melted butter/vinegar/emulsified butter sauce. Buerre blanc also has shallots, and was in theory invented in France in the 20th century ……

And it’s Samuel Pepys who provides the sparrow-grass reference on April 20, 1667:

So home, and having brought home with me from Fenchurch Street a hundred of sparrowgrass,—[A form once so commonly used for asparagus that it has found its way into dictionaries.]—cost 18d. We had them and a little bit of salmon, which my wife had a mind to, cost 3s. So to supper, and my pain being somewhat better in my throat, we to bed.

 

Lily Tomlin.Birth name - Mary Jean . She didn't used to be a Lily, but is now.

Lily Tomlin.Birth name – Mary Jean . She didn’t used to be a Lily, but is now. Always golden.

 

“citius quam asparagi coquintur”

May 6th, 2013 by KM Wall

“quicker than you can cook asparagus”, as according to the Roman emperor Augustus.

Good advice for the asparagus,  no matter what the century – cook that sperage quickly. No mushiness allowed. Just the taste of green -  and a little butter, perhaps.

asparagus

About Asparagus.

Asparagus are just boiled, not too well done, and then eaten with Oil, Vinegar, and Pepper or otherwise with melted Butter and grated nutmegs.
- 1661. The Sensible Cook, Rose ed. p. 48.

And now in the original Dutch:

Van Aspergies.

Aspergies worden flechts ghekoockt/ niet al te murruw/en dan gegeten met Olie/ Azijn/ en Peper/ of anders met gesmolten Boter en geraspte Notemuskaten.
- (p. 63 . fasc page)

Ortus sanitatus. Moguntiae: J. Mayenbach, 1491. Leaf: 27 x 20 cm.; Illus.: 10.5 x 6.5 cm. Woodcut Wangensteen Historical Library of Medicine and Biology

Ortus sanitatus.
Moguntiae: J. Mayenbach, 1491.
Leaf: 27 x 20 cm.; Illus.: 10.5 x 6.5 cm.
Woodcut
Wangensteen Historical Library of Medicine and Biology

illustration from  University of Minnesota Libraries.

To make Sorrell Cream

May 2nd, 2013 by KM Wall

It’s too early for raspberries here in Plymouth, but there are some warm days, and sorrel can be as refreshing as fresh fruit…..

Raspberry in bloom -they're not quite ready yet, but sorrel is!

Raspberry in bloom -they’re not quite ready yet, but sorrel is!

TO MAKE RASBERRY CREAM

Take a pinte of cream & boyle it with 3 whites of eggs beaten well with warme cream, put in a blade or 2 of mace & some leamon pill, & when it is pritty well boyled take it of & season it with sugar & put in some Jiuce of rasberries. stir it well together & when it is cold serve it up. thus you may make curranberrie, sorrell, or leamon cream.

-          MW Booke of Cookery, Hess ed. C125. p.142.

Rumex acetosa - garden sorrel

Rumex acetosa – garden sorrel

A Plaice, the yuce of Sorrel and more sops

April 30th, 2013 by KM Wall
Hippoglossoides platessoides   - American Plaice

Hippoglossoides platessoides – American Plaice

 A Plaice

Sole Meunière is a classic French treatment of flatfish with a lovely, lemony sauce, and worth noting if only for the Julia Child in Rouen moment (pause and praise Julia), and  Poisson à l’oseille  – Fish with Sorrel Sauce au francais – was my sorrel moment. A different flatfish, a different French city, a different decade, but in one mouthful I knew I’d been wasting sorrel and it was time to make up for lost time.  And this recipe calls for sorrel juice – that is, yuce. Don’t be afraid – the fish should be more poached then boiled, and if you can get a whole one, and not just a fillet….heaven on a plate.

20. To butter Plaice vpon Sorrell sops.

Boyle your Plaice in faire water and Salt, and a fewe sweete Hearbes and Vinegar, then take them vp and dry them in a faire cloath, then dish them in sippets in the bottom of a dish then power vpon it a quarter of a pint of the yuce of Sorrell, and set it vpoon a chafindish of coales, and when you bee ready to serve it, poure vpon it a little butter drawne thicke with the yuce of Sorrell, then strowe grose Pepper and Salt, put sippets about it and serve it then to the table hotte, your sauce will looke very green and the fish east pleasant and short.

-         1621. John Murrell. A Delightfull daily exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen. Falconwood Press: 1990. p. 38.

 

Biblical bread

 More sops

John 13:21-26   1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)

21 When Jesus had said these things, he was troubled in the Spirit, and [a]testified, and said, Verily, verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.

22 Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.

23 Now there was one of his disciples, which [b]leaned on Jesus’ bosom, whom Jesus loved.

24 To him beckoned therefore Simon Peter, that he should ask who it was of whom he spake.

25 He then as he leaned on Jesus’ breast, said unto him, Lord, who is it?

26 Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it: and he wet a sop, and gave it to Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son.

Rice puddings

April 24th, 2013 by KM Wall
Rice

Rice

 

Spring is a season where things change fast. One minute it’s all about dragons, the next there’s an abundance of milk and eggs to use. Rice was a common commodity to take to sea, but also a special treat when made into puddings.

Pudding funnel (these are white puddings or boudin blanc) from Ivan Day's site

Pudding funnel (these are white puddings or boudin blanc) from Ivan Day’s Historic Food site

 

Rice puddings

Take half a pound of Rice, and steepe it inn new milke a whole night and in the morning drain it, and let the Milke drop away; then take a quart of the best sweetest and thickest Creame, and put the Rice into it, and boyle it a little; then set it to cool an hower or two, & after put in the Yelkes of half a dozzen Egges, a little Pepper, Cloves, Mace, Currants, Dates, Sugar and Salt; and having mixt them well together, so serve it into the farms[1], and boil them as before shewed, and serve them after a day old.

1631.  Gervase Markham, Best ed. English Housewife. p. 72.



[1] ‘farms’ or forms a/k/a guts or puddings

 

To make Rice Puddings.

Boyle halfe a pound of Rice with three pintes of Milke, a little beaten Mace, boyle it untill your Rice be drie, but never stirre it, then you must stirre it continually or else it will burne: powre your Rice in a Collinder, or else into a strainer, that the moisture may runne cleane from it: then put to it sixe Egges, and put away the whites of three, halfe a pound of Sugar, a quarter of a pinte of Rose-water, a pound of Currans, a pound of Beefe suet shred small, season it with Nutmeg, Sinamon, and a little Salt, stirre all this together with a spoone thinne, drie the smallest guts of a Hog in a faire cloth being watered and scoured fir for the Puddings, and fill them three quarters full, and tie both ends together, let them boyle softly a quarter of an houre or scarce so much, and let the water boyle before you put them in, and doe as the other Puddings last spoken of.

Note: the previous puddings were Liverie Pudding and the notes are:

…cut the small guts of a Hogge about a foot long, fill them three quarters full of the aforesaid stuffe, tie both ends together and boyle them in a kettle of faire water, with a pewter Dish under them, with the bottome upward, and it will keepe your Puddings from breaking:…(p. 26)

1638. John Murrell. The Second Booke of Cookerie. Stuart Press: 1993.p. 27.

 

A Ryce Pudding.

Steep it in faire water all night: then boyle it in new Milke, and draine out the Milke, through a Cullinder[1]: mince beefe Suit [2]handsomely, but not too small, and put it into the Rice, and parboyled Currins[3], yolkes of new layd Egges, Nutmeg, sinamon, Sugar, and Barberryes[4]: mingle all together: wash your scoured guttes, and stuffe them with the aforesaid pulp: parboyle them, and let them coole.

1615. John Murrell. A New Booke of Cookerie. Falconwood Press. 1989. p. 18.

 

[1] colander

[2] that’s suet – a beef/sheep fat

[3] currents

[4] a small, red, sour berry much like a cranberry…..

A Good Friday Pudding

March 29th, 2013 by KM Wall

 

A ‘good Friday’ pudding

 

‘Also of these grits [oats] are made the Good Friday pudding, which is mixed with eggs, milk, suet[1], pennyroyal[2], and boiled first in linen bag, and then stripped and buttered with sweet butter.’

- Markham, Gervase. Best ed. The English Housewife, p. 203.


[1] suet is the fat from neat or sheep (neat are bovines)

[2] pennyroyal- a/k/a ‘pudding grass’ -  is an herb in English gardens. It also has a purging quality…..it’s a member of the mint family (Mentha pulegium); there are other mints that aren’t purging, just refreshing…..

pennyroyal - it gets this bloomy late May/early June

pennyroyal – it gets this bloomy late May/early June

 

What’s so ‘Good Friday’ about this pudding? It never really says…it could be the pennyroyal, which could be part of a seasonal purging….this recipe is in the Oats chapter of The English Housewife, and not in with the other recipes in the Cookery section.

Yes, Oats have their own chapter.

Bag Pudding (OED)   [f. BAG n.1 + PUDDING.]

1. A pudding boiled in a bag.
1598 in FLORIO. 1600 HEYWOOD 1 Edw. IV, Wks. 1874 I 47 Thou shalt be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a bag-pudding.

1641 W. CARTWRIGHT Ordinary II. i, A solemn son of Bagpudding and Pottage.

2. fig. ? Clown. Obs. (Cf. jackpudding.)

1608 DAY Hum. out of Br. II. i. (1881) 25 Farewell, sweet heart.God a mercy, bagpudding

Jack pudding is also a song and a dance.

Pudding Bag (OED)

A bag in which a pudding is boiled. Also transf. and fig.

c1597 T. DELONEY Jack of Newberie (1619) iv. sig. G3, The other maide..with the perfume in the pudding-bagge, flapt him about the face. 1626 in NARES (Halliw.), [A piece of Sail-cloth] about half a yard long, of the breadth of a pudding-bag. (first reference to ‘pudding cloth’  – 1853.)

 

Bag Pudding (redacted)

soaked  oats

½ C milk

3 eggs

4 T butter (If you can find human food grade suet, by all means use that. Chop it fine first.If you can just find the mouldy, nasty bits they set out for bird feeders, use butter as the alternative grease. Grease is good!) )

pennyroyal (or better yet, some  other herbs)*

cloth

Boil the oats  until soft. Add the milk, 1/3 of butter. When cool enough add the eggs. If you choose herbs, add a sprig or two of that.

Tie it up in a buttered cloth (the ‘floursack’ towels make great pudding clothes. You’ll want something maybe 15′ all around, hemmed and washable.)  Put the pudding in a pot of boiling water – arrange it so that it doesn’t touch the sides or bottom. Think pasta pot – you want plenty of water boiling all around the pudding. Tuck the ends of the cloth in the water so they don’t burn.

Boil until firm – ½ – 1 hour. Add more water to keep covered if necessary during boiling. Keep the water boiling and move it from time to time to keep it from sticking.

Remove from water, drain. Place on serving plate and take cloth off. Butter the top and serve.

* Pennyroyal notes: Pennyroyal is now considered to contain ” a highly toxic volatile organic compound affecting liver and uterine function. “  Use some other member of the mint family to flavor your pudding! Yes, people used to eat it – they also died young pretty frequently.

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