Welcome back! Today, we are going to talk about the history of bread pudding here in the United States.
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My research reveals that bread pudding was a popular food on literally both sides of the Mason – Dixon line. It seems that during the Civil War, soldiers were known to substitute crackers for bread, and apparently the sweeteners were extremely difficult to retrieve, especially for Confederate soldiers. My research revealed some pretty colorful descriptions of, in times of desperation and overwhelming cravings for sweets, soldiers would crumble up cookies and mix them with whatever sugar they could find along with raisins and water and boil the mixture in tin cups. There are also stories about how the scarcity of sugar and flour during those wartimes led to the preparation of fruitcakes that were described as “fearsome to the taste and digestion”.
A SAMPLE OF BREAD PUDDING RECIPES THROUGH TIME
Here are a couple of recipes I found in my research for bread pudding. As you can see by the dates, they are very old. I found them interesting to read and use my imagination to imagine how things were done back then.
[1747] “A bread pudding Cut all the crust off a white penny loaf and slice thinly in a quarter of new milk, place on a charcoal plate, until the bread has absorbed all the milk, then put in a pat of sweet butter, stir flip, let it sit until cool, or you can boil your milk, and pour it over your bread, and cover it well, it fills up too; then take the yolks of six eggs, the whites of three, and beat them, with a little rose water, and nutmeg, a little salt and sugar, and if you wish, mix it all well, and let it boil for half an hour . .” —The art of cooking, simple and easyHannah Glasse [1747] p. 109
[1824] “Bread pudding Grate the crumb of a stale bread and pour it into half a liter of boiling milk, let it rest for an hour and then beat it until it becomes a pulp; add six eggs, well beaten, half a pound of butter, the same amount of powdered sugar, half a nutmeg, a glass of brandy and a little grated lemon peel; put a paste on the plate and bake it”. —Virginia’s HousewifeMary Randolph, 1824 facsimile edition with historical notes and comments by Karen Hess [University of South Carolina Press:Columbia] 1984 (p. 150)
In my next post I will include some more recent recipes. I hope you will again enjoy looking back in time to compare these recipes and see how they have changed over the centuries. We’ll even get to some very current recipes that you might like to try. I’m sure you’ll find that the basic recipe lends itself quite a bit to many modifications and has endless possibilities for variation. Check back in a few days for the rest of the story…
Bon Appetite
