David Friedman wrote:
> In article >,
> Kate Dicey > wrote:
>
>
>>JP Coane wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Please tell me this site is a joke.
>>
>>Why should it be a joke? The recipes are all genuine (if a little
>>ordinary). The history bit is rather too well condensed to remain
>>really accurate, but if you look at a few food histories, it has the
>>bones of truth in there.
>>
>>Here in the UK steamed and boiled suet and other puddings, both sweet
>>and savoury, are a tradition that go back to the Dark Ages and beyond.
>
>
> Unless you are talking about Apicius, I don't think we know much about
> recipes in the UK earlier than the early medieval (aka "Dark Ages")
> period.
>
> The page says:
>
> "Christmas puddings originated as a fourteenth century 'porridge' called
> frumenty. They were made of cereal, breadcrumbs, mutton and beef with
> raisins, wines, prunes, currants and spices. they were stuffed in
> sausage skins, enclosed in a pastry and baked."

As I pointed out, the history is rather too well condensed to be accurate...
>
> 1. Frumenty, at least the recipes I am familiar with, isn't made of
> "mutton and beef," it is served with the meat.

It was frequently made with stock from meat bones. In their book Pleyn
Delit Hieatt and Butler give an excellent recipe, both in the original
and a modern version.
>
> 2. So far as I know it didn't have breadcrumbs

But may things were thickened with breadcrumbs, both savoury and sweet.
Don't discount it as a later addition, or as a filler if there was
spare stale bread about and not enough cereal grains... Eeking things
out with breadcrumbs is an old tradition.
>
> 3. Nor prunes and currants

These were a later development. By mediaeval times it was quite common
to include dried fruits and spices in meat dishes that contained both
meat and grains.
>
> 4. But did have eggs and milk (or almond milk)

Not always.
>
> 5. And wasn't stuffed in a sausage skin, enclosed in a pastry and baked.

But it might have been cooked in a leather bag...
>
> "It was eaten as a fasting dish before the Chrismas festivities."
>
> Not if it was made out of mutton and beef, as the page just (mistakenly)
> asserted.

There's no reason to suppose that there were not fasting versions made
with plain water or using only the broth from bones cooked before the
fasting started.
>
> So far as I know, the link between frumenty and Christmas pudding is
> invented--does anyone here have evidence for it?
>

Like most things in cooking it's more likely to be a long slow
development that took several hundred years than and went in several
directions than something for which there is a direct link.

There's some interesting archaeological evidence for some cooking and
food preparation methods discussed in A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food
Processing and Consumption by Ann Hagen.


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