November 13: National Indian Pudding Day!
Do you know what Indian Pudding is? I didn’t. I assumed it was something Indian (as in from India) and I was intrigued by the prospect of eating a curried pudding. Alas, the pudding should really be called Native American Pudding Day. Or, in Canada, First Nations Pudding Day.
According to Wikipedia (this blog should really be sponsored by Wikipedia…), Indian Pudding is a type of Hasty Pudding. A hasty pudding is “a pudding or porridge of grains cooked in milk or water. In the United States, it invariably refers to a version made of ground corn”. Hasty pudding is also mentioned in the song Yankee Doodle, which I didn’t believe. I tried to sing it, but I guess I only know the lyrics through “called it macaroni” (side note: why couldn’t I have made macaroni?). But yeah, hasty puddin’ is a lyric. Now you know.
Anyway, Indian Pudding is a traditional New England dessert. Again, from Wikipedia:
It was commonplace in the colonial era and enjoyed a revival as part of Thanksgiving Day celebrations in the late 19th century. It was found in most American cookbooks before 1900. The 20th century’s commercial puddings with their industrially perfect smooth consistency displaced Indian pudding and its cooking time had little appeal for the modern home cook. It is still associated with autumn holidays and occasionally revived by restaurants.
Can I just say that I, for one, am grateful for the “industrially perfect” consistencies of pudding? I actually had to make this the day before National Indian Pudding Day since I had a conference in Sacramento on the real holiday and I had my doubts that any restaurants would be serving Indian pudding on their menus, despite the “occasional revival.” I did, however, wait to try the Indian pudding until National Indian Pudding Day (at 5:30am). Verdict? I’m going to leave this one to the colonists.
Tomorrow: National Guacamole Day
**I just realized there are THREE “National Indian Pudding Days: November 13, February 17, and June 27. WTF? I am not eating this three times. I will be celebrating the alternate food holidays.
