RICE PUDDING, AGAIN #2

Dorset Street - photograph for Jack London's book The People of the Abyss, 1902

 

Here is part two of my story inspired by the 1995 TV series Bramwell. Today's recipe is from a cookbook that was published fifty years before Eleanor politely complains about the rice pudding: Modern Cookery, in all its branches (1845) by Elizabeth Acton. This book remained in print until 1918 so it's likely that Dr Bramwell's cook was more familiar with this than with the recently published Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book (1894). Although Lizzie Heritage also included recipes for everyday puddings in her work, earlier cookbooks featured really simple versions that were made for the sick and/or by the poor. Perhaps Katie the housemaid or Miss Bramwell's patients at the Thrift sometimes ate this pudding while Eleanor certainly did not:

Recipe #2

"CHEAP RICE PUDDING. Wash six ounces of rice, mix it with three quarters of a pound of raisins, tie them in a well-floured cloth, giving them plenty of room to swell; boil them exactly an hour and three quarters, and serve the pudding with very sweet sauce: this is a nice dish for the nursery. A pound of apples, pared, cored, and quartered, will also make a very wholesome pudding, mixed with the rice, and boiled from an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half. Rice, 6 ozs; raisins, 1/2 lb.: 2 hours. Or, rice, 6 ozs; apples, 1lb.: 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hour." Modern Cookery, in all its branches, p. 385

So it was either rice & raisins or rice & apples for this pudding. Raisins were more of a luxury than apples, especially given the quantity needed in this recipe so it's more than certain that East End people would rarely eat this pudding. There's a variety of sweet sauce recipes in Elizabeth Acton's collection suitable for puddings but they were all based on wine, making the finished dish quite extravagant.

 

CHEAP RICE PUDDING

I kept this as simple as possible, opting for the rice & raisin version and - believe it or not - of all three19th century rice puddings I adapted the other day, this is my absolute favorite.

 

I n g r e d i e n t s

170g Carolina rice

340g sultana raisins 

 

M e t h o d

Boil the ingredients in a mesh until the rice is soft. Divide among ramekins and garnish with your favorite topping. (I used 12 fresh plums for mine - with 75g sugar, 1tsp molasses and 45g butter.)