Hasty pudding is apudding orporridge ofgrains cooked in milk or water. In the United States, it often refers specifically to a version made primarily with ground("Indian") corn. It mentioned in the lyrics of "Yankee Doodle", a traditional American song of the eighteenth century.
Since at least the sixteenth century, a dish called hasty pudding has been found inBritish cuisine. It is made ofwheat flour that has been cooked in boiling milk or water until it reaches the consistency of a thickbatter or anoatmeal porridge.[1] It was a staple dish for the English for centuries.[2] The earliest known recipes for hasty pudding date to the 17th century. There are three examples inRobert May'sThe Accomplisht Cook. The first is made with flour, cream, raisins, currants and butter, the second recipe is for a boiled pudding and the third includes grated bread, eggs and sugar.[3]
Hasty pudding was used byHannah Glasse as a term for batter or oatmeal porridge inThe Art of Cookery (1747).[4] It is also mentioned in Samuel Johnson'sDictionary of 1755 as a combination of either milk and flour or oatmeal and water.[5] The recipe is also found inThe Compleat Housewife where it is made with gratedpenny loaf, cream, egg yolks,sack (ororange blossom water) and sugar.
Indian pudding is a traditional Americandessert, "a cold-weather classic" in thecuisine of New England.[6] It was commonplace in the colonial era and enjoyed a revival as part ofThanksgiving Day celebrations in the late 19th century. It was found in most American cookbooks before 1900.[7] 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.[8] It is usually served warm and sometimes accompanied by vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.[9]
Seventeenth-century English colonists brought hasty pudding to North America and transformed it completely. Lacking wheat, they substitutedcornmeal, a grain they learned to cultivate from theindigenous peoples, which led to the new nameIndian pudding, derived from their name for cornmeal,Indian meal.[8] They substituted milk, which was plentiful, for water and added locally available sweeteners, eithermolasses ormaple syrup, and spices when available, typicallycinnamon and groundginger. Other traditional ingredients include butter and eggs for a smoother consistency and raisins and nuts for flavor and contrasting texture. Finally, Indian pudding was baked in a slow oven for several hours, transforming its texture from the porridge-like quality of hasty pudding to a smoother texture more typical of custard puddings. According to Kathleen Wall,Plimoth Plantation's expert on colonial cooking, "The longer it cooks, the more liquid the gritty cornmeal absorbs, and the more it absorbs, the smoother the texture of your pudding."[6]
In 1643Roger Williams called the dish "nasaump":[10]
Nasaump, a kind of meale pottage, unpartch'd. From this the English call their samp, which is the Indian corne, beaten and boild, and eaten hot or cold, with milke or butter, which are mercies beyond the Natives plaine water, and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for the English bodies.
A modern version of this process could be seen in the dish known outside the Southern US as Southerngrits, made from hominy. Hominy is made through a process callednixtamalization in which maize, a form of corn that has thicker ovary walls and a wider kernel than sweet corn. Maize is usually broken down by an alkaline substance, most commonly limewater, to pull out nutrients and increases its overall nutritional value, allows the product to be more easily ground, and improves the flavor and smell of the corn. In the common US vernacular,sweet corn is referred to as the default moniker of "corn", and also does not need such an alkaline processing, as is the case with this form of maize. The words maize and corn are often, but not always, used interchangeably, hence the vast differences between processed and unprocessed versions of corn kernels mentioned above.
Eliza Leslie, an influential Americancookbook author of the early 19th century, includes a recipe forflour hasty pudding in her 1840Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches, and calls the corn type "Indian mush". She calls an oatmeal versionburgoo. She stresses the need for slow cooking rather than haste, and also recommends the use of a specialmush-stick for stirring to prevent lumps. (This mush-stick is perhaps related to thespurtle, or thepudding stick of thenursery rhyme beating.)[11]
Catherine Beecher's recipe:[12]
Wet up the Indian meal in cold water, till there are no lumps, stir it gradually into boiling water which has been salted, till so thick that the stick will stand in it. Boil slowly, and so as not to burn, stirring often. Two or three hours' boiling is needed. Pour it into a broad, deep dish, let it grow cold, cut it into slices half an inch thick, flour them, and fry them on a griddle with a little lard, or bake them in a stone oven.
Hasty pudding is referred to in a verse of the early American song "Yankee Doodle":
Fath'r and I went down to camp
Along with Captain Goodin',[13]
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as hasty puddin'.
It is also referenced inLouisa May Alcott'sLittle Men (1871): "on their garden plot, Emil and Franz devoted themselves to corn, and had a jolly little husking in the barn, after which they took their corn to the mill, and came proudly home with meal enough to supply the family with hastypudding andJohnny cake for a long time."
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In the recipe for theBrazilian puddingcurau (Portuguese pronunciation:[kuˈɾaw]),sweet corn grains are taken raw together with milk and most often coconut milk to a blender until uniformly liquid; cinnamon powder is sprinkled at the end. When boiled wrapped in corn husks is calledpamonha.
Polenta is the savoryItalian version of hasty pudding, withmaize/corn substituted for the wheat originally used by theRomans.
American hasty pudding is very similar togrits, although grits can be made sweet or savory.[14][15]
