November 13th is National Indian Pudding Day! Don’t know what Indian Pudding is? Never heard of it, you say? You’re not alone. Mention Indian pudding to a non-New Englander, and you’ll likely draw a blank stare. Though it has always been staple on Thanksgiving tables in New England, and was known throughout the country well into the 20th century, the humble corn custard has largely drifted off the modern-day culinary map. Some older Yankees may harken back to memories of eating the colonial curiosity as children, but there are even more who simply have no idea what the heck it is.
The origins of this food holiday are obscure — “I don’t know who the National Indian Pudding Day lobby is,” says food historian Kathleen Wall, who works at Plimoth Patuxet Museum, the Colonial living-history museum in Plymouth, Mass. The holiday, she notes, has “never been petitioned at the White House.” But the dish itself, says Wall, is unquestionably all-American. She calls it one of the country’s first truly American recipes.”You have Indian corn, which you have to come over here to have — it’s not in England at at all. The milk from the cows that are brought over here by the European settlers. There’s the molasses that comes with the trade with the Caribbean,” Wall says. “And so it is, to my mind, a New England dish. It is not an English dish, or a Colonial dish; it belongs to all of New England.”
Historians trace this uniquely American dessert as far back as the 17th century. It most likely descended from England’s hasty pudding, a sweetened stove-top porridge made by stirring boiling milk or water with wheat flour. Indian pudding, however, uses cornmeal, which was abundant to early settlers in New England, while wheat was not. (“Indian meal” was what settlers called cornmeal.) Molasses, meanwhile, which was being produced in massive amounts to produce rum, was a readily available, inexpensive sweetener during Boston’s rum trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. And unlike its British predecessor, Indian pudding is baked for a long time at a low temperature, a reflection of the hearth that was central to the early New England kitchen, which radiated heat for hours after the weekly baking was done. The pudding would have sat in that ambient warmth until it set. A uniquely new-world dish was born.
Like much of traditional New England cooking, Indian pudding was quite plain, Wall says. It fell out of favor, though it never disappeared entirely. Some places, like the historic Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, find that though the dish can be a hard sell to the uninitiated, it’s still a favorite with locals.”We like people to try it and eat it, because most of the people like it,” says Wayside innkeeper Steve Pickford. “It’s sweet, it’s sugary, it’s good. But, it looks like crap.” Okay, so maybe the appearance doesn’t dazzle — the finished product looks very, uh, shiny and brown. But it is delicious and comforting. And bonus – since it’s made with cornmeal, it’s naturally gluten-free!
Wall says that she expects that soon, humble dishes like Indian pudding may see another heyday. To try your hand at making your own Indian Pudding, here is Wayside Inn’s recipe, courtesy keyingredient.com.
—
Photo Credit: Brent Hofacker / Shutterstock.com