For those not of an English background, the stodge-filled delights of a classic English dessert menu can be somewhat intimidating and only really consumable if you’ve declined to have a starter or main course, and care little for the well-being of your lower intestine. In this treatise I take you through a range of those traditional desserts, touching on their origins, recipe and cultural significance.
Let’s get the obvious one done and out the way with.
Spotted Dick – This is not in fact a reference to a syphilitic member, but to the nickname of its inventor, John Tamworth. He was an amateur Georgian pudding smith from Ottley, and once indicated the location of infamous highwayman and horse thief, Dick Turpin, to local authorities when spying him in a field bothering cattle. He spent the next four years bragging about the fact that he had ‘spotted Dick’, until his friends and family just started calling him it to mock him. Anyway, his raisin-filled steamed suet pudding became the talk of Yorkshire, and Tamworth was able to retire on the royalties alone at the tender age of 43. “My dick has made me want for nothing,“ he said in an interview with the Leeds Mercury newspaper in 1743, “and has been in every mouth from here to Huddersfield.“
Plum Duff – The original dessert was made out of lead (from the Latin ‘plumbum’). It has maintained its density until this day and is still used by builders on a plum duff line to test the straightness of buildings. During the Renaissance, Italian builders tried the same strategy with panna cotta whose feeble density, coupled with a strong southwesterly, led to the Tower of Pisa.
Pineapple Upside-Down Cake – As many people know ‘whimsy’ was a key element of the Victorian artistic movement. The Queen’s declaration of ‘we are not amused’ was seen by her subjects as a gauntlet being thrown down, a challenge to pump society full of highly risible moments and comic motifs. People started dressing stuffed squirrels and dormice up as Gladstone and D’Israeli; Tennyson wrote his ill-fated sequel to ‘The Lady of Shallot’, ‘The Queen of Onions’ where the Lady awakes from her ‘death’ only to find herself forcibly married off to a costermonger; and Music Hall acts first started to use the phrase ‘have a banana’ in even the least bawdy of their routines. Inspired by such whimsical anarchy, the kitchens of well-to-do restaurants such as The Grosvenor Hotel took to inverting their desserts. This was taken back home to America by American tourists and has since erroneously been labelled as an American invention.
Sponge Pudding and Pink Custard – This is a stalwart of primary schools. The sponge cuboid is reconstituted play building bricks. The pink custard gets its unusual colour as instead of cow’s milk being used, flamingo milk is. About two dozen flamingos need milking to get enough to make a custard as it is so devilishly difficult to find a flamingo’s teat. The dessert isn’t served at secondary schools as learning that only mammals produce milk is a key part of the Key Stage 3 science curriculum.
Bread and Butter Pudding – Linking prohibition to the meteoric rise in the wealth of Americans (well, the wealth of the wealthy, the poor weren’t really relevant), the Conservatives, under Stanley Baldwin, decided a similar strategy was required to kick-start Britain’s failing post-WWI economy. They outlawed desserts. The English ‘speakeasy’ equivalents, the ‘relatively unencumbered chatteries’ proved ineffective and many of the ‘with-it’ socialites were arrested for jam tart consumption or cream horn trafficking. Seeking to avoid the stringent anti-dessert laws, innovative backstreet bakers developed ‘bread and butter pudding’. As it contains absolutely nothing anyone in their right mind would put into a dessert (excepting raisins), it passed through the vigilant checks of the APES (Anti-Pudding Enforcement Squads). The APES were furious.
Sponge Indifference – As many people know, we English find happiness and over-excitement objectionable in many ways. As such, many English desserts are geared towards being somewhat disappointing – we feel more at ease in being underwhelmed. As such ‘Sponge Indifference’ is a dessert created between the two World Wars in Suffolk. It is a sponge with a prune in every third or fourth serving. During rationing, families in Suffolk would serve up the dessert and declare the family member who received the prune, the Lord or Lady of the Prune, and they would be permitted to tune in the wireless to a station of their choosing for half an hour. On a side-note, ‘sponge indifference’ is how Elizabeth Taylor referred to Richard Burton’s penis in their second set of divorce papers.
Queen of Puddings – The monarchy and desserts have a long history: the Queen of Heart’s Tarts springs to mind, as does Princess Margaret’s triple sherry trifle with vodka chaser. The Queen of Puddings is a celebratory foodstuff designed for the Glorious Revolution and named in honour of Mary II whose bosom closely resembled the pudding – as shown in the risqué royal portrait of her done by Jan Verkolje in 1685 (the portrait inspired the Royal Baker, Official Pervert and Thrice-Peeping Thomas to the Stewart Family, Simon of Brunswick in designing the dessert). The rumour that it was named in honour of her obese stature (the rumour further states that between her husband, William III, and herself they owned sixteen chins – the precise distribution of said chins depended upon the season – the balance favouring Mary in the colder months and William during the Summer) is all complete nonsense and fabrication. Supposedly, this non-bosom based explanation was the creation of Puritans, who had very strict views on mammary-inspired dishes. In fact, far from being obese, Mary was remarkably fit and active – unlike her sister Anne, and was pivotal in popularising palates in pre-Georgian Britain. Mary died of small pox at the age of 32. As a tribute, a rose tinge was added to the meringue frosting.
Eton Mess – The main ingredients of this dessert are cream, raspberries and social elitism.
Harrow Bloody Disaster – Similar in make-up to Eton Mess, the Harrow Bloody Disaster is served in a boater with a sauce made of antiquated class-based ideologies.
Sticky Toffee Pudding – A stalwart of the pub menu, sticky toffee pudding has its origins in the time of Alfred the Great. Although he famously burnt the cakes, Alfred was rather a dab hand in the kitchen – somewhat unusually so for a monarch in those days (excepting of course for Sven Forkbeard’s tremendous reindeer flapjacks). As part of his treaty with Guthrum that set up the Danelaw, the two leaders had to create a dessert in honour of the other. Guthrum burnt some drop scones laced with ginger to mock Alfred’s earlier cake-cremating fiasco, whereas Alfred designed his dessert on his defeat of Guthrum at the Battle of Ethandun. The sticky toffee element was symbolic of the boggy nature of the terrain, which had hampered the movement of Guthrum’s Viking forces. The custard represented Guthrum’s enforced conversion to Christianity. It is unclear how. However, that is why until this day it is only morally right to have custard with sticky toffee pudding. To accompany it with cream is to go against the will of God. With the desserts, there was much laughter and hilarity on both sides, and everyone lived happily ever after. On a side-note, ‘sticky toffee pudding’ is how Richard Burton referred to Elizabeth Taylor’s vagina in their second set of divorce papers.
Trifle – The name comes from the latin ‘tri fle’ with ‘tri’ meaning ‘three’ and ‘fle’ weep. Literally ‘three weeps’ Each layer of the trifle represents a different martyrdom in the ancient Roman church. The sponge fingers represent the aged fingers of St Polycarp of Smyrna (died 155AD) who was named after the unholy union betwixt a parrot and a freshwater fish. He was told to curse Christ by the authorities, and when he refused to do so was submerged with others in sherry.
St Ignatius of Antioch is represented by the jelly with raspberries embedded in it. He himself was fed to the lions for refusing to kick a duck in honour of Minerva. “For did not our Lord say unto Peter – ‘look after my mallard, its feathered hide is as the clouds in my Father’s kingdom’“ Ignatius is reported as saying at his trial. When his flock pointed out that Christ had said nothing of the sort, he responded with “At least let me have this bloody one, you sanctimonious buggers.“ The red jelly represents Ignatius’ bloodied martyrdom, and the raspberries his organs and guts that got stuck between the lions’ teeth.
The final layer, that of the custard and whipped cream, symbolises St Agnes. Agnes, was martyred as a thirteen year old virgin when she refused to marry a trout in a wig. The whiteness of the cream is symbolic of her virginal status, whereas the custard denotes her jaundice and barely functioning liver.
Apple Crumble – Both a sign of great national pride and shame too. Having a ‘stiff upper lip’ in even the most trying of circumstances is a way a Britisher self-identifies, so to have its fruit display no form of backbone is somewhat embarrassing. The first apple to display this abject cowardice was a bramley cooking apple in 1642 who fled Roaylist forces at the Battle of Edgehill. By the time of the Battle of Preston over 16,000 bramley apples were in a state of nervous exhaustion alone. Lord Fairfax proposed to mask their distressed state by covering them in the crumbled remains of the pastry that had been produced in an effort to make a large edible Cromwell. Disgusted at the very deifying of leaders that they’d been fighting against, Cromwell had had the statue destroyed with musket fire. At Fairfax’s insistence, it had covered the embarrassed apples and the whole mass suddenly became delicious when a local witch, Gladys Pips, escaped her pyre mid-burning, only to tumble into the gigantic proto-pudding , igniting it and baking it in forty minutes. Once they’d removed the witch’s remains, the ‘apple crumble’ was divided up amongst the New Model Army and there was much rejoicing. A national dessert had been created, a symbol of Parliament’s victory.
Arctic Roll – This was inspired by John Ross’s first visit to the Arctic where he witnessed the native Inuits rolling a bloodied seal carcass up in snow to preserve it. And it was such light-hearted whimsy that Ross wished to commemorate when he got home. He first tried bludgeoning a pinemartin and rolling it up in a hankie. This behaviour got him suspended from the Royal Geographic Society and Epping Forest. Eventually, whilst having breakfast with his nephew, he noted the similarity in colour between seal blood and raspberry jam. He used this anecdote unsuccessfully at a series of high society gatherings until he stopped getting the invites. This at least gave him more time to focus on his commemorative pudding idea. In order to maintain the ‘cold’ Arctic element he replaced the seal/pinemartin with a block of vanilla ice-cream, and was eventually persuaded by his housemaid to stop ruining his handkerchiefs and instead bother the cook for some thin sponge. A mere fortnight later he had combined these three different elements in a satisfactory order and the Arctic Roll was born.
Jam Roly-Poly Pudding – Inspired by the gymnastics element of primary school PE lessons, this family favourite is simply jam smearage on thin sponge, rolled up and dusted with icing sugar or cocaine. It was created by a primary school teacher, Mrs Delphinium Wombrater, back in 1935 who insisted that a pasty student who’d had a nosebleed flow akin to Victoria Falls, still partake in gymnastics. When said child fainted mid-tumble, the layered pasty flesh/fresh blood coupled with the lesson being just before lunch, gave Delphinium the idea for the dessert. After several unpopular initial attempts, Delphinium replaces blood in the recipe with jam, and the rest is history.
Treacle Tart – Named after the experience of a Yorkshire man biting into one causing him to remember a prostitute from his sordid past. T’ recall tart was eventually simplified to ‘treacle tart’, which was handy as one of the main ingredients is ‘treacle’. To be fair its inventors Nigel and Windolene Bandersnatch of Clothbury, West Yorkshire, felt like right idiots when this was pointed out to them.
Sussex Pond Pudding – A pudding that is to arteries what several million handwipes flushed down lavatories is to the London sewage system. It is made by boiling or steaming for hours suet pastry that has been filled with butter and sugar (and for the health conscious vitamin-C freaks, a whole lemon). When cut open the butter/sugar has formed a rich caramelised sauce that becomes the aforementioned pond. But a pond where ducks would develop Type-2 diabetes, bob about briefly and then sink unable even to summon the energy to quack. The first recipe we have for it dates from 1672 in Hannah Woolley’s ‘The Queen-Like Closet’ – a terrifying locked room murder mystery novella in which characters mid-conversation would recite recipes. The recipe for ‘Sussex Pond Pudding’ is spoken by the curate, Obadiah Chinstrap, when he is explaining his movements on the evening of the murder to an ostler’s daughter, Jemima Beige:
“Why I did but tarry a moment in the vestry, for once evensong had finished and the verger had divested me of mine vestments, I needeth to race to the scrivener’s aunt’s to exorcise a farthingale she felt had been corrupted by Satan’s breath. Wrap ye firste two poundes butter in egg-enrichéd suet pastry. Place in sack and boil for two houres. Once ye hathe removéd the pudding from the boiling water, slice open so its richeness mayeth exudeth forth. Add ye then sugar and rosewater and but a handful of bitter barberries.“
Both literary critics and gastronomists alike are scathing in their responses to this.
Eve’s Pudding – The ‘Eve’ in question is of course Yves Saint Laurent who invented the dessert in collaboration with Fanny Craddock as part of his Mondrian Collection in 1965. Craddock heavily promoted the pudding on her televisual programmes, insisting that Johnnie describe to the British public just how satisfying he found Eve’s pudding. According to Yves Saint Laurent’s biographer, Clint Moomin, Yves had very little to do with the recipe ingredients-wise, but insisted that the aesthetic be ‘Le Smoking’. Craddock, never one to turn down a challenge, or a gin, initially placed twenty lit gauloises underneath a sponge topping. Yves described the result as ‘foul but strangely more-ish’ and refused to have his name associated with the pudding. Craddock simply replaced the cigarettes with stewed apples and Yves was thrilled.
Gooseberry Fool – This dessert pre-dates its Victorian mimics such as the ‘lemon bloody idiot’ and the ‘strawberry muppet’ by some two or three hundred years. The ‘fool’ here doesn’t of course refer to a buffoon or poltroon, but rather has its roots in the word ‘flue’ in its archaic spelling form of ‘flō’. During the Reformation, gooseberries were seen as a symbol of Catholicism with their link to the martyrdom of Saint Beryl, and consequently Henry VIII had the collecting and consumption of them banned. As a result, practicing Catholics would hide gooseberries up their chimneys. The gooseberries wouldn’t survive the process and would become a pureed, stewed mess, which people then folded into custard and cream and ate. Even to this day, the higher end of the Anglican Church refuse to acknowledge gooseberry fool, and in Walton-on-the-Naze back in 1987, the appearance of one at a church fete led to a full on brawl and fourteen deaths.
Jam Tarts – Until Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ no-one outside of his family had ever heard of ‘jam tarts’. The practice of using jam in desserts was unheard of – up until that point, jam was only used in the smelting of iron ore and as an adhesive in joinery. Carroll’s father, Charles Dodgson, was a High Anglican vicar, and had become disillusioned with the Church of England’s stance on preserves – writing in The Times in support of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement’s attitude towards jam he said “I find the separation of preserves from liturgy a heretical standpoint, and yet this is the predominant view of the Church of England in its current state. One cannot deny that symbolically the concept of preservation and the predominant colour of the majority of preserves (strawberry jam, raspberry jam, blackcurrant jam) being on that part of the electromagnetic spectrum we call ‘red’, that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and subsequent resurrection, defeat of Death and preservation of the faithful, is far too powerful and semiotically significant to ignore. In order to be true followers of Christ in our Anglican movement we must embrace jam.“ (The Times 25/3/1937). Dodgson developed the jam tart that he then served at communion alongside the bread and wine. In one of the first editions of ‘The Church Times’ in 1863, Dodgson submitted his recipe for jam tarts, and it was tarts based on this recipe that his son Lewis Carroll included as the Queen’s tarts in his first Wonderland novel. By the 1870s jam tarts were baked in nearly all ovens in the country.
Questionable Graham – On a regional level, this dessert is popular and successful, but nationally is seen as an embarrassment. Labelled as a citrus infused dessert, it only ever really contains lemon or lime as it does not like orange. For a dessert to truly be classed as English, it has to pass what is known as the ‘Sumo-test’ and be at least 70% stodge. If the adjectives ‘delicate’, ‘sophisticated’ or ‘subtle’ can be used to describe it, it simply isn’t an English pudding.
Treatises of Gloria 