Who invented the christmas pudding?
The Christmas puddings that we eat nowadays usually come in the shape of the basin in which they are cooked; but when you see pictures of traditional Christmas puddings, they look like large footballs. This is because the pudding mixture was always tied up in a cloth or a bag and then boiled in a large pan, often in the tub that boiled the clothes on wash day. As the pudding cooked it would swell out to until it became round in shape. Christmas puddings used to be called ‘plum pudding’ because one of the main ingredients was dried plums or prunes. The name ‘plum pudding’ continued to be used, even when people used raisins, currants, and sultanas instead of prunes. The earliest puddings were nothing like the ones we enjoy today. They were long and round, and shaped like a thick sausage. They consisted of chopped-up meat, suet, oatmeal and spices and they were cooked in the scalded intestines of a sheep or pig. These puddings were served hot at the beginning of a meal as the first course
