Publetariat will be off until Jan 3, 2016. Hoping you have a wonderful holiday season and we will see you again next year! Until then here is a podcast and post on Figgy Pudding from NPR.
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‘Oh, Bring Us Some … ‘ Wait. What Is Figgy Pudding?
This holiday season, one popular Christmas carol has been raising some questions here at NPR headquarters. Namely:
“Oh, bring us some figgy pudding, oh, bring us some figgy pudding, oh — ”
Wait. What is figgy pudding?
First of all, it’s “absolutely delicious,” says Debbie Waugh, who recently served the dish at a tea at the Historic Green Spring House in Alexandria, Va.
Figgy pudding — also known as plum pudding or Christmas pudding — is a staple of the British Christmas table, she says.
“It resembles something like a cannonball, and it maybe feels a bit like a cannonball when it hits your stomach, but it’s tradition and we love it,” Waugh tells NPR’s Michel Martin.
And despite its moniker, the dessert features neither figs nor plums.
From The Archives
“The ‘plum’ was a pre-Victorian generic term for any type of dried fruit, but most specifically, raisins,” Waugh explains. ” ‘Figgy’ — certainly at some time figs would have been incorporated into Christmas pudding recipes, but today, not traditionally.”
It’s also a pudding in the British sense, meaning dessert — not the creamy, custardy dish most Americans associate with the word. It’s a steamed cake full of raisins, currants and brandy.
Read the full post on NPR
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