Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/274

254 difficult to be described. Flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, suet, marrow, raisins, &c., are the most common ingredients of a pudding. They bake them in an oven, they boil them with meat, they make them fifty different ways. Blessed be he that invented Pudding. Ah, what an excellent thing is an English Pudding!" We recognise our mince-pies and plum-pudding in another of his observations. "Every family against Christmas makes a famous pye which they call Christmas pye. It is a great nostrum, the composition of this pasty: it is a most learned mixture of neat's tongues, chicken, eggs, sugar, raisins, lemon and orange peel, various kinds of spicery." This Christmas or minced pie was originally made in the shape of the manger wherein the Holy Infant was laid. "They also make," continues the astonished traveller, "a sort of soup with plums, which is in their language call'd plum-porridge."

But there was still a great want of refinement in the food of these days. We find numerous receipts for marrow-puddings, mixtures of cocks' combs and hedgehog, and blood puddings were not uncommon.