Figgy Pudding (occasionally Piggy-Pudding) is a vague term used for a class of traditional Christmas dishes usually forming sweet and savory cakes, containing a sour-sweet creamy layer of honey, fruits and nuts. In later times, rum or other distilled alcohol became often added to enrich the fruitiness of the flavor.
Etymology
Medieval cooking commonly employed
fig
The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...
s, in both sweet and savoury dishes.
One such dish is fygey, in the 14th century cookbook ''
The Forme of Cury
''The Forme of Cury'' (''The Method of Cooking'', from Middle French : 'to cook') is an extensive 14th-century collection of medieval English recipes. Although the original manuscript is lost, the text appears in nine manuscripts, the most fa ...
'', which in Modern English is "figgy", this dish being known as ''figgy pudding'' or fig pudding:
The Middle English name had several spellings, including , , , , and . The latter is a 15th-century conflation with a different dish. Figee was in fact a dish of fish and
curd
Curd is obtained by coagulating milk in a sequential process called curdling. It can be a final dairy product or the first stage in cheesemaking. The coagulation can be caused by adding rennet or any edible acidic substance such as l ...
s, which was named in
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intel ...
, meaning "curdled" (the past participle of the Old French ). But it too came to mean a "figgy" dish, involving cooked figs, boiled in wine or otherwise. A turn of the 15th century
herbal has a recipe for figee:
has the recipe under the name "fignade" on page 42. Richard Warner's has it under the name "fyge to potage". ''
Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management
''Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management'', also published as ''Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book'', is an extensive guide to running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton and first published as a book in 1861. Previously p ...
'' contains two different recipes for fig pudding that use
suet, numbers 1275 and 1276.
In popular culture
Often associated with the original traditions of Christmas, it is most notably referred to in the
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol (a song or hymn) on the theme of Christmas, traditionally sung at Christmas itself or during the surrounding Christmas holiday season. The term noel has sometimes been used, especially for carols of French or ...
"
We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in the line "Now bring us some figgy pudding!". Figgy pudding is not
plum pudding
Christmas pudding is sweet dried-fruit pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain and other countries to which the tradition has been exported. It has its origins in medieval England, with early recipes making use of ...
, although it can be considered a precursor to it. It is not as rich, nor as complex in its recipe.
A number of Christmas markets will offer figgy pudding-flavored desserts as part of their range, though the relation of these to the original taste-wise is rather doubtful.
See also
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Figgy duff (pudding)
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Christmas pudding
References
Cross-reference
Reference bibliography
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{{cookbook, Figgy Pudding
British puddings
Fig dishes