Indian Pudding in Sturbridge Massachusetts (with recipe!)
Indian Pudding was on the menus absolutely everywhere we went in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. We finally tried it the day we had lunch at the Old Sturbridge Village Tavern.
We were expecting a dish something like southern classics corn pone (an eggless corn bread), corn pudding (somwhere between a quiche and a souffle), or spoon bread (a pudding-like bread).
We couldn’t have been more wrong!
It turns out that Indian Pudding, which originated in New England, is a spicy baked pudding made chiefly of cornmeal, milk, and molasses. The name Indian pudding comes from the addition of cornmeal—early colonists called most everything made with corn “Indian.” Originally the pudding was cooked in a pot over the open hearth and was very dense.
And it is NOTHING like the southern dishes we had in mind.
Indian pudding is traditionally serviced with ice cream, whipped cream, or hard sauce for a reason. We declined all of the above, and quickly regretted our choice.
What we received was essentially big bowl of warm molasses, slightly diluted with cornmeal and ginger. It was astoundingly strong in flavour.
Neil, a molasses fan, thought the Indian Pudding was amazing. I found it too sweet to eat.
I also got so loopy from the iron and sugar in just a spoonful that I spent the afternoon running and whooping up and down the dirt roads of historic Old Sturbridge Village (OSV). (Picture an overstimulated child the day after Halloween: that was me. Parents and school teachers will know exactly what I’m talking about.)
To put that phenomenal sugar rush into perspective, the OSV tinker told us that the early settlers at Sturbridge ate an average diet of 5,000 calories a day, and yet had life expectancies into the 70’s and 80’s: they burned off the calories with hard physical labour.
Indian Pudding had to go a long way to making up those 5,000 calories.
This is a good dish to serve on the crisp autumn weekend you fill your cellar with wood for the winter. Or the day you shovel driveways—for your entire zip code.
It should also be a big winner with any anemics or vegan vampires you have over for Thanksgiving dinner.
You can find recipes for Indian Pudding in both Fanny Farmer and the Joy of Cooking, or you can try this recipe from Jasper White’s Cooking from New England via Steven Frederick’s blog.
Indian Pudding
- 2 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 cups milk
- 5 Tablespoons yellow cornmeal or johnnycake meal
- 1/3 cup molasses
- 1/3 cup maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 egg beaten
- 1 cup cold milk
- Heavy or light cream for serving
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
- Grease a 1 ½ quart soufflé mold or baking dish with 1 tablespoon of the butter; set aside.
- Heat 3 cups of milk in a saucepan until it is close to a boil.
- Add the cornmeal and reduce heat to low. Stir until the mixture thickens (about 5 minutes).
- Remove from the heat and add the remaining butter, the molasses, maple syrup, salt, cinnamon, ginger and egg.
- Pour into buttered mold or dish.
- Place in the preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes.
- Pour the cold milk over the pudding and return to the oven.
- Cook for 1 hour and 30 minutes to 1 hour 45 minutes more or until the top is brown and crisp.
- Serve hot with cream.
Serves 6 to 8 people.
And if Indian Pudding isn’t hearty enough for your tastes, you might want to try flumadiddle: a baked main course pudding from New England made with stale bread, molasses, spices and pork fat.
Enjoy your taste of Massachusetts!
Photo Credit: Elise at Simply Recipes
9 comments
Sounds like a yummy pudding although I’ve never heard of it until now…I guess I wasn’t traveling to the right places ;)
It really was omnipresent in the menus around Sturbridge. Keep an eye out for it if you ever find yourself in central Massachusetts.
And remember: don’t pass on the side of ice cream!
Alas it sounds fabulous but I can no longer eat any sugar (Type II) but check out the fabulous fig dessert my wife made for me yesterday http://www.soundvisions.ca/2008/09/17/fresh-figs/ (and check out her art work while you’re there – she’s great) – I’m glad someone invented Splenda as it’s made going without sugar so much easier.
Doug, I missed the news that yo u got married! Congratulations! I am so happy for you and Diane, both. :)
And happy belated birthday as well.
That fig dessert looks amazing–and much more my style, too, than a big bowl of molasses and corn meal!
We miss the Indian Pudding that we used to be able to get at the little shack in Aquinnah on Martha’s Vineyard. I attempted it as a dessert for this Thanksgiving and it was great…cooked in the crockpot. Now we can have it a couple of times a year. What a treat!
Thanks for sharing your New England Indian Pudding experience. In glancing through your listings I noticed the mention of Haggis in the weird food realm. My grandparents were from Scotland and settled in Massachusetts. As such I’ve acquired the taste for both Haggis and Indian Pudding as kid. Haggis used to be found in many of the local butcher shops in Scotland. If you care for a recipe let me know as I can send you one. Leave it to the Scots the same people who decided that a horse rub tonic was better suited for inebriation and thus the birth of Scotch. Again, thanks for sharing the indian pudding experience, it’s been years since I’ve been to Sturbridge, and I may have to stop by there the next time on my way through to my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Mildford, Massachusetts. If you enjoyed Sturbridge you should try Plimouth Plantation for a Thanksgiving Dinner.
I doubt we’ll be trying to make haggis (since I would be the one eating it, and I’m not much of a cook), but I do appreciate the offer =]
I’m actually a similar hybrid; my mom is from England (and her family, some time back, up and moved to Scotland), and my dad is from the land of chit’lins. We spent some time in Dallas, surrounded by menudo, too . . .
I didn’t know about the horse tonic connection, that’s pretty interesting. Although, I have known a sailor or two who’ve filtered aftershave through a loaf of bread when alcohol was scarce.
The more things change . . .
We are certainly hoping to meander back through New England in the spring (we’re developing something of a counter-clockwise migratory pattern), and we will keep an eye out of Plimouth Plantation for an extremely early Thanksgiving meal =]
That must be fabulous (and indeed excessively sweet). The ginger would make it nicely hot, but I would try to reduce the amount of sugary bits (easy. To start with, where would I find molasses in Rome?).
Just a clarification, though: Would the cornmeal be completely cooked after 5 minutes or just starting?
(since I would have to use polenta meal to do this, I need to know)
Leave a Comment