The Edwardian Paper Bag Craze

Edwardian England. The height of elegance, and a way to demonstrate your class, was the dinner party. It was a time when the food you served said a lot about your wealth and status. These recipes were often coveted by their owners (such as in Mapp and Lucia the coveted Lobster à la Riseholme). It was during this time that cooking in a paper bag became fashionable. It was clean, easy, economical and it quickly became the fashionable way to dine. Which is why for my elegant Edwardian evening I am making White Plum Pudding cooked in a paper bag.

       I should first point out that I didn't atually use a paper bag. My fear of blowing up my house made me skeptical so I used baking parchment as I will demonstrate below. Here is the recipe;

A White Plum Pudding.

Beat to a cream a half cup of sugar and three-quarters cup of butter. Add four eggs well beaten, a spoonful of salt, two cups milk, a quart of flour mixed with one-half cup shredded citron, one-half cup currants, a teaspoonful grated nutmeg and a teaspoonful vanilla. Just before turning into the mould stir in two even tablespoonfuls pure baking powder. Put in bag, surround with water, steam two hours and serve with any good sauce.

My Makeshift Paper Bag;
I followed the recipe as it was written. I then poured it into my dish (or ‘mould’). Placing the dish onto a large sheet of baking parchment I then gathered the parchment at the top and tied it with string. I then continued with the recipe and cooked it in a steamer for two hours.

When I actually came to making the recipe I realised it gave no mention of plums. I wondered if perhaps it had been left out of the recipe as it was assumed the reader would know that a plum pudding would include plums. After all what kind of plum pudding has no plum? I eventually decided that by this era it would have been mentioned rather than assumed, so I made my plum pudding without them. As you can see in the picture above it looks highly unappetising, like something you might find in a wooded area rather than in your kitchen. It also looks a bit anaemic, as though it could do with a bit longer in the oven. Determined to stick to my Edwardian recipe I resisted the temptation to put it in for longer. I was not a particular fan of my makeshift paper bag; it was messy and got the mixture all over it- so whoever said it was ‘clean and economical’ lied.

          To taste the pudding wasn’t bad, its stodgy texture was familiar and comforting the kind of thing you might want if you’ve had a bad day. The texture was very familiar to me, and reminded me of some dish from my childhood that I can’t put my finger on. Perhaps a cross between dumplings or jam roly poly (oddly there is no suet in this pudding). My mum says it’s reminiscent of bread pudding but I have no recollection of trying that either. It was a really stodgy dish that reminded me of something that might have been popular in war time Britain rather than at a dinner party. The rest of my testers just laughed when I produced it, unwilling to try it. My brother wanted to poke it, and oddly so did I, it looked like the kind of food that would wobble happily if you gave it a good poke. But maybe that’s just my childish side trying to break free.

          Overall, I would say that this reminds me of another era different to the Edwardian one. Worth a try if you like puddings not too sweet, probably not one you would make on a regular basis. I would be very interested to see what it would be like with a base of sliced plums, perhaps one day I will try that. It would certainly add a new dimension to the pudding.

          ONE LAST THING- After making this pudding I have discovered what I made could have been like a Christmas pudding. So there we go- I accidently made a festive pudding in spring which I’m sure is bad luck. On a Christmas pudding scale I defiantly prefer this one to the normal kind we get, but then I’m not a big fan of currents.
Slightly Different Era but Dickens gives such a good spin on plum pudding that I had to add it as a footnote.

"In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top." – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol