by “A proper pudding is the perfect comfort food after Sunday lunch on a cold day.” So says Carol Wilson, whose new book – a comprehensive collection of heritage recipes is titled English Regional Cooking (£25, Waterstones) – they have quite a few. “We are known for our many delicious puddings,” she says. “No other country has such a rich variety of syllabaries, custards and trifles, steamed and baked puddings, junkets and milk possets, fruit pies and pies, bread puddings and more.”
So where have they all gone? The frequency with which we eat pudding is declining. Research from pollsters Kantar Worldpanel Plus shows that only 49.2 per cent of us were eating dessert at least once a week in October 2023 – compared to 64.3 per cent a decade earlier. It’s a long-term decline that’s set to continue, according to another 2023 poll, commissioned by Mars Wrigley, which revealed that 44 percent of 18-34-year-olds never make dessert at home.
A treacle tart, a galvanized sponge and a tart dick, it seems doomed. But Wilson is just one of the many people who would find that they were happy to be revived.
The history of sweets
Our modern understanding of pudding as a sweet course to complete a meal dates from the 17th century. Until then, the puddings were more likely to be tasty – something recalled in the name of the black pudding. “Pudding recipes grew as sugar imports became cheaper, cooking techniques evolved and people developed a penchant for sweet things,” says Regula Ysewijn, author of the authoritative historical guide. Pride & Pudding.
First of all, these sweet desserts were the preserve of the rich and the recipes were covered in the kitchens of the big houses. But as sugar prices continued to fall, they found a natural home in ever-lower kitchens. “Our cold, damp climate called for stronger food,” explains Wilson. “So during the 17th and 18th centuries, we created a wonderful variety of puddings that used fat and sugar to build energy and keep out the cold.”
Various regional desserts grew out of the need to use seasonal gluttons of whatever produce was grown locally. “The South of England was famous for its cherry orchards,” says Wilson. “The cherry season was short, so a pudding like Cherry Batter Pudding in the District helped make the most of the harvest.” Worcestershire, meanwhile, was famous for its apples. These would be used in Malvern pudding, a soft apple and custard dish with a burnt sugar crust.
Tasty ingredients would also get the dessert treat. “In Lancashire, potatoes would be used to make potato harvest pudding,” says Wilson. Because of this unlikely pronunciation, mashed potatoes are mixed into a batter with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, cider, currants and coconut, then baked into something like a soufflé. “You can’t taste the potatoes,” she explains, “they’re there to add substance.”
Then there were puddings designed to use pantry ingredients. These included everyday leftovers such as stale bread, used in bread and butter pudding and treacle tart, as well as those forbidden for religious events: puddings such as Folkstone pudding pie, a currant-studded cheesecake called pie an Kent also Lent. developed to use eggs, milk and cream before the start of the fasting season.
Other desserts were inspired by local gluttons of non-native produce, such as Cumberland rum nicky, a pie named after the fertilizers or cuts made in its crust. This used rum, dates, spices and brown sugar, which came from the Caribbean into Cumbria ports such as Whitehaven, which were major trading centers during the 19th century.
The importance of regional names
The growth of travel between regions has helped to undermine this regional diversity, promoting a sense of homogeneity in our sweet taste. But it also crystallized our awareness of this regional heritage, according to Ysewijn. “Regional puddings are a relatively new phenomenon, which came along with railways and tourism,” she says. “Before the Victorian era, very few recipes had a local or regional name.”
If you lived all your life in, say, Monmouth, you would be very familiar with the meringue dish of jam and milk-soaked bread that we now call Monmouth pudding. But you would appreciate its uniqueness only when you traveled somewhere else; it’s just that you might need a term to describe it.
Ysewijn believes that this desire to apply our marks with a regional identity is connected to the prevailing cultural mindset. “He was part of the Romantic movement,” she says, “giving regional names to dishes to create a sense of belonging. For example, puddings like Bakewell were eaten all over England before it was renamed Bakewell pudding. So, the regionalization of Bakewell pudding is probably the reason why we still know it today, but it also spread to other areas.”
Decay on desserts
Many more would disappear from food times during the 20th century. This trend was exacerbated by the effects of food rationing (sugar rationing remained in place until 1953), the increasing time pressure on home cooks, and the industrialization of the food industry, which resulted in frequent purchases of the puddings that used to be served instead. than was done.
The desserts that are still popular today address a different need, says Ysewijn. “We want a lighter fare because we don’t spend the day working in the fields. Puddings provided nourishment in the past; today all they have to do is rejoice.”
Likewise, Wilson thinks it’s time to rediscover some of our heritage puddings. “I would love to see Bake Off asking the contestants to make a small, well-known pudding from their own region,” she says. Ysewijn agrees that we should make time to enjoy pudding together. “The pride of British cuisine is its puddings,” she says. “Other countries had similar recipes in their cookbooks for hundreds of years, but the British really took them and developed them to their success. If you have a sweet tooth, you really haven’t lived until you’ve enjoyed a British steamed pudding.”
