The fashion for decades has been for quick-cook recipes that can be started and eaten within 30 minutes, and such books have sold well in our times. Everyone is pressed from all ends, and the family barely sits down anymore. Cooking is a bother, something to endure or outsource. We eat whatever is there and think not much about its quality as food.
As I consider the show “Downton Abbey” and why so many have found it compelling, I often think of the kitchen scenes. They are some of the most entertaining with the richest social dynamic, as decidedly non-upper-class people figure out who is who and what is what, while busying themselves in an old-world kitchen in which everything is done by hand.
A major feature of the Christmas specials has been Mrs. Patmore’s figgy pudding. Yes, just like the song: “Bring us some figgy pudding” and “We won’t go until we’ve got some.”
I just tried my first authentic figgy pudding. It’s glorious, unlike anything I’ve ever had. It is filled with interesting spices, very moist, robust, and, of course, covered in figs. It also seems to have a dark beer mixed in there somehow, along with a healthy amount of beef tallow. This is not food like we eat today. It is the original farm-to-table food, delicious and really rooted in what was around at the time.
This stuff is a revelation. It is dark, port-soaked, faintly boozy, laced with beef fat that gives it an almost savage richness you simply don’t find in modern desserts. It tastes like the 19th century feels in the imagination: romantic, the product of struggle, unapologetic, a little dangerous, and completely satisfying.
Critically, it takes time to cook—like a long time—and then it can sit and grow more flavorful for many weeks, which is why cooks would make these in Advent and only pull them out for Christmas, served with custard or cream. This is life-affirming food: mighty, manly, and rich in complex flavor.
As for the time it takes, my attitude is: The more time, the better. Cooking is a wonderful diversion from screen time, commutes, housecleaning, or yammering on the phone. It is a chance to detach, rediscover the meaning of patience, and experience a causal connection between labor and reward.
Maybe the figgy pudding is already part of your household liturgy, but one doubts it. For my part, I only knew this from the song and then from the Downton series. It never occurred to me that such could be recreated in one’s own home without too much trouble, provided you dedicate yourself to it.
The experience of eating it really does take you back to a time and place we can only imagine and know only from movies and books. This was a time without a great deal of food choice and not much cooking technology beyond a fire and iron stove. You had to improvise and use every bit of heat to make as much as possible, with the creativity of generations embedded in the process.
Thus we have puddings that were steamed rather than baked, and the results are very different. To be sure, this word pudding here seems inapplicable if you know the word only from the little packages you buy at the store or the pudding packs we devoured as kids. This is more like a moist cake, the word pudding more generally applied to a food on the sweeter side.
No modern kitchen has 19th-century-style stoves, but the same can be achieved with pots with water and covered bowls. You probably have all you need in your own kitchen. And there is nothing wrong with using a recipe such as you find recreated from 19th-century sources.
A friend made a figgy pudding in her own kitchen with tremendous results. I know this because I’m eating a piece right now on the train, and everyone around me is marveling at what this food is. The steward of the train swore he would try it himself at home as he prepares his own Christmas feast.
Here is what you need for the figgy stuff: 14 ounces (400 grams) dried figs, 3 tablespoons golden syrup or honey, 1/2 cup (120 milliliters) fruity red wine or red port, 4 teaspoons Cointreau or Triple Sec, 6 to 7 tablespoons (60 grams) dried currants.
For the pudding itself, you need unsalted butter for lining the ceramic mold, 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (110 grams) flour, 1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed dark brown sugar, 1 1/2 cups (60 grams) fresh breadcrumbs, 2 ounces (60 grams) shredded suet (or tallow), 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon mixed spice (or ginger plus clove), 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, a pinch of salt, 2 lightly beaten eggs, and 5 tablespoons (75 milliliters) stout or other dark beer.
Cut the figs and warm them lightly in port and honey or syrup so they are nice and sticky. Leave them overnight if time allows.
Cover the inside of a small/medium ceramic bowl in butter and press the cut figs around the bowl to form a fruit crust, while mixing the remaining figs with dry ingredients in a large bowl. Beat the eggs with the stout, then stir into the dry mix until everything is well mixed. It should have a soft dropping consistency.
Spoon the mixture into the figgy bowl, leaving a 1/2-inch gap at the top. Cover with buttered baking paper, then pleated foil (the pleat allows expansion), and secure tightly with string or wire. Put the bowl in a larger pot with water surrounding it, covering the sides. Do a slow steam at a low/medium temperature, say 300 degrees Fahrenheit, for three to four hours, topping up the water as needed.
Let cool. At this point, you can turn it over and observe the magnificence. You can re-cover with fresh paper and foil and store in a cool, dark place. It can stay there for weeks at a time, and you can variously enjoy pouring brandy or rum over it if you want to. Serve with warm brandy, custard, cream, or ice cream.
It tastes like the concentrated spirit of every English winter since Shakespeare—or since Henry Purcell’s birthday music for Queen Mary II. This is how the aristocracy and even peasantry ate for centuries. It is rich and filling, not to mention thrilling. It’s great for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a late-night snack, and it lasts and lasts without refrigeration.
You can totally understand how it came to be famous in song and legend. It’s not difficult. Indeed, it is surprisingly easy, even foundational. One main ingredient that is not on the list: patience. The 30-minute special this is not. You will find your reward at the end of this journey.
We won’t go until we get some.
