We’ve had a couple of occasions to do a “Christmas in July” feast. It’s a good option in Okewaite, where it gets very cold in winter.

Early puddings were haggis-like things cooked in the guts of animals, the earliest documented one being a porpoise pudding from the 1300s. (Yes, they ate porpoise; we made enquiries but alas couldn’t source any…)

Pottages were boiled concoctions, usually made with dried starchy peas, with ground-up vegetables and bits of meat. In the 1400s they made “standing” (dried) pottages including dried fruit to preserve them.

These could be taken on long trips and military campaigns, and rehydrated somehow before use. I have found no written evidence of this, but I would not be surprised to find that these were carried around in linen or hempen bags, and boiled in the bags in the same pots used for boiling salted pork.

I expect that the longest-keeping puddings would be those that had honey or sugar to help preserve them, and just the more solid animal fats like suet. In military campaigns, I expect that boiled puddings would have been an expensive and rare relief from salted pork and hard biscuit.

So I’m comfortable that something very like our Christmas puddings probably existed around the 1500s, though I don’t have any proof of this. The modern Christmas pudding is a creature of the 1800s.

This recipe is my best go at a medieval pudding of the 1500s, with beer to be a bit different. Unlike a bowl pudding, there is a whitish sheen on the outside, from the flour on the inside of the bag. We’ve done it a couple of times, and it worked well.

250g flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
0.5 tsp nutmeg
250g currants
125g raisins
125g sultanas
250g breadcrumbs
250g carrots grated
250g apple grated
200g suet
250g brown sugar
1 tblsp marmalade
1 tblsp molasses
125 mL beer
50g peel

Sift the dry ingredients together.  Add others progressively.  You want to end up with a soft dropping consistency. Dredge a calico bag with flour.  Put pudding inside, and tie loosely. (Mix makes 3.)

Put into boiling water, and boil for 4 hours.  Rest for 5 minutes in the bag before removal. I find you can get three puddings in a big boiling pot, but it really steams up the kitchen. Best to do them on a barbecue outside.

Sprinkle with white sugar.  Pour over warmed brandy, and set alight as you bring it into the hall. Always gets a cheer.

Easily serves a dozen.