THE PLUM PUDDING IDEA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 273, 24 December 1909, Page 4

THE PLUM PUDDING IDEA

There is something queer about the Christinas pudding idea. It lays hold of people. We have the very strongest kind of convictions upon the subject. The turkey may be a little tough or underdone "or lacking in flavor, or some other part of the dinner fail to come up to our expectations, and the annoyance is overlooked and soon forgotten. But let the pudding prove less' than our fancy painted it, and we feel a distinct sense of wrong; we consider ourselves defrauded in a measure of certain rights which we look upon as inseparable from Christmas. Have you ever heard the story of the origin of "Plum Duff," the great holiday dish of sailors? An English brig in the South Pacific was caught in an awful storm a few weeks' before Christmas, and not only lost the coop containing the chickens designed for tiso holiday dinner, but the cook was washed overboard as well. Here was a sad plight; no cook and no dinner. Hut, strange to relate, it was not the loss oi either the meat or the cook that troubled the sailors; it was the certainty that no plum pudding would grace the Christmas table. However, a Christmas dinner of some sort they determined they must have, and drew lots as to who should be cook. The choice fell on, the boatswain's mate, who was a better sailor than a scholar. Certain hints from the crew convinced him that they would look for a Christmas pudding. In the galley he found an old cook-book. This he solemnly pored over in search of something promising, but he discovered nothing he dared venture upon. At last he found a recipe which began, "Make a stiff dough." When lie reached the word dough he aa'd to himself, "If rough spells ruff, dough spells duff." So he made the pudding, using plenty of raisins, and also evolved some sort of a sauce which he served with it. The sailors were delighted. "What d'ye call it!" they asked. "Plum dull'," answered the boatswain's mate, and "plum duff" it lias remained from that (lav to this.