Figgy pudding
{{Short description|Christmas dish}}
{{Infobox food
| name = Figgy pudding
| image = Figgy Pudding with flaming brandy.jpg
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| type = Pudding
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| country = United Kingdom
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| serving_size = 100 g
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Figgy pudding or fig pudding is any of many medieval Christmas dishes, usually sweet or savory cakes containing honey, fruits and nuts. In later times, rum or other distilled alcohol was often added to enrich the fruitiness of the flavour.
Etymology
Medieval cooking commonly employed figs in both sweet and savoury dishes.{{sfn|Threlfall-Holmes|2005|p=61–62}}
One such dish is fygey, in the 14th century cookbook The Forme of Cury.{{sfn|Threlfall-Holmes|2005|p=61–62}}{{sfn|Breverton|2015|p=236}}{{sfn|Hieatt|Nutter|Holloway|2006|p=113}}
{{verse translation|language=enm|Take Almaende blanched; grynde hem and drawe hem up with watr and wyne; quartr figs hole raisons. Cast þerto powdor gingr and hony clarified; seeþ it wel and salt it, and seve forth.{{sfn|Pegge|2014|p=45}}|attr1=The Forme of Cury recipe 118|Take blanched almonds, grind them, mix with water and wine, quartered figs, whole raisins. Add in powdered ginger, clarified honey, boil it well and salt it, and serve.{{sfn|Albala|2006|p=65}}}}
The Middle English name had several spellings, including {{lang|enm|ffygey}}, {{lang|enm|fygeye}}, {{lang|enm|fygee}}, {{lang|enm|figge}}, and {{lang|enm|figee}}.{{sfn|Austin|1888|p=129}}{{sfn|Shipley|1955|p=267}}{{sfn|Hieatt|Nutter|Holloway|2006|p=38}} The latter is a 15th-century conflation with a French dish of fish and curds called {{lang|fro|figé}}, meaning "curdled" in Old French.{{sfn|Shipley|1955|p=267}}{{sfn|Austin|1888|p=129}}{{sfn|Morton|2004|p=51}} But it too came to mean a "figgy" dish, involving cooked figs, boiled in wine or otherwise.{{sfn|Shipley|1955|p=267}} A turn of the 15th century herbal has a recipe for figee:
{{verse translation|Nym figes, & boille hem in wyn, & bray hem in a morter with lied bred; tempre hit vp with goud wyn / boille it / do therto good spicere, & hole resons / dresse hit / florisshe it a-boue with pomme-garnetes.{{sfn|Austin|1888|p=113}}|attr1=Laudian Manuscript 553, Bodleian Library|Take figs and boil them in wine, and pound them in a mortar with bread. Mix it up with good wine; boil it. Add good spices and whole raisins. Dress it; decorate it with pomegranate seeds on top.{{sfn|Ayto|2012|p=133}}}}
{{lang|la|Liber Cure Cocorum}} has the recipe under the name "fignade" on page 42.{{sfn|Austin|1888|p=129}}{{sfn|Hieatt|Nutter|Holloway|2006|p=38}} Richard Warner's {{lang|la|Antiquitates Culinariae}} has it under the name "fyge to potage".{{sfn|Austin|1888|p=129}}{{sfn|Warner|1791|p=67}}{{sfn|Hieatt|Nutter|Holloway|2006|p=38}} Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management contains two different recipes for fig pudding that use suet, numbers 1275 and 1276.{{sfn|Beeton|2006|p=618}}
In popular culture
Often associated with the original traditions of Christmas, it is most notably referred to in the Christmas carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in the lines "Now bring us some figgy pudding," "We all love our figgy pudding," and "We won't go until we get some!"{{sfn|Cassidy|2004|p=48}} Figgy pudding is not plum pudding, although it can be considered a precursor to it. It is not as rich, nor as complex in its recipe.{{sfn|Breverton|2015|p=236}}
See also
References
= Cross-reference =
{{reflist|25em}}
= Reference bibliography =
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite book |title=Cooking in Europe, 1250–1650 |series=Daily life through history |issn=1080-4749 |author1-first=Ken |author1-last=Albala |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2006 |isbn=9780313330964 |chapter=The Middle Ages 1300–1450}}
- {{cite encyclopaedia |encyclopaedia=The Diner's Dictionary: Word Origins of Food and Drink |article=figee |author1-first=John |author1-last=Ayto |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780199640249}}
- {{cite book |title=Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books |url=https://archive.org/details/twofifteenthcent00aust |author1-first=Thomas |author1-last=Austin |publisher=N. Trübner & Co. |year=1888}} ({{Internet Archive |id=twofifteenthcent00aust |page=148 |name=Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books}})
- {{cite book |title=Mrs Beeton's Household Management |author1-first=Isabella |author1-last=Beeton |author1-link=Isabella Beeton |publisher=Wordsworth Editions |year=2006 |isbn=9781840222685 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/mrsbeetonshouseh0000beet }}
- {{cite book |title=The Tudor Kitchen: What the Tudors Ate & Drank |author1-first=Terry |author1-last=Breverton |author1-link=Terry Breverton |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |year=2015 |isbn=9781445648750 |chapter=Sweets}}
- {{cite journal |title=Now bring us some figgy pudding! |author1-first=Jennie |author1-last=Cassidy |volume=104 |date=December 2004 |journal=Early Music Review |publisher=King's Music |isbn=9783761815946}}
- {{cite book |title=Concordance of English Recipes: Thirteenth Through Fifteenth Centuries |volume=312 |series=Medieval & Renaissance Texts Studies |author1-first=Constance Bartlett |author1-last=Hieatt |author1-link=Constance Bartlett Hieatt |author2-first=Terry |author2-last=Nutter |author3-first=Johnna H. |author3-last=Holloway |publisher=ACMRS |year=2006 |isbn=9780866983570}}
- {{cite encyclopaedia |encyclopaedia=Cupboard Love 2: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities |author1-first=Mark |author1-last=Morton |publisher=Insomniac Press |year=2004 |isbn=9781897415931 |article=bouce Jane}}
- {{cite book |title=The Forme of Cury, a Roll of Ancient English Cookery |editor1-first=Samuel |editor1-last=Pegge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2014 |isbn=9781108076203}}
- {{cite dictionary |dictionary=Dictionary of Early English |author1-first=Joseph T. |author1-last=Shipley |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=1955 |isbn=9781442233997 |article=figee}}
- {{cite book |title=Monks and Markets: Durham Cathedral Priory 1460–1520 |author1-first=Miranda |author1-last=Threlfall-Holmes |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 |isbn=9780199253814}}
- {{cite book |title=Antiquitates Culinariae, Or Curious Tracts Relating to the Culinary Affairs Of The Old English |url=https://archive.org/details/b24919342 |author1-first=Richard |author1-last=Warner |publisher=R. Blamire |year=1791 |location=London}}
{{refend}}
{{cookbook|Figgy Pudding}}