The odd thing about a plum pudding is that it contains no plums
at all. Yet it is so sweet that I don’t think the Victorian
Englishmen could have chosen a better name for it. The pudding
began as a festive gruel in the middle ages. Yet the Victorians,
with their ingenuity, invented the method of steaming the
pudding in a basin. The entire family would gather together to
engage in pudding making festivities on a certain day called
Stir-up Sunday. Here, each member of the house would take a turn
to stir the plum pudding while making a wish. The lead cook
would then put into the pudding batter either a ring or a coin
or a thimble. The person who bit into the ring was, according to
tradition, destined for marriage, the person who bit into the
coin was likewise destined for wealth, and the person who bit
into the thimble was destined for a happy, but single, life. So
how do we make one of these anyway? Well, in modern times we
might skip the Stir-up Sunday rituals, the coins and rings and
all that, but we surely w