Friday Five: Hasty Pudding Edition

I have gotten a late start on this Friday Five. Revgals was late in posting it and last night J and I went to hear Joan Baez. Sooo wonderful!

Our regular poster, Sally, having been oppressed by Blogger today, I bring you a hasty Friday Five on the subject of pudding. If you are not a fan of pudding, then you will feel solidarity with Sally, except that you will be oppressed by pudding instead. ;-)

1) First of all, thumbs up? or thumbs down? Do you like pudding?

I am not much of a pudding person. I do like rice pudding upon occasion. The kind of pudding I like is Yorkshire pudding which isn’t sweet at all.

2) Instant or cooked? (Does anyone make pudding from scratch?)

If I am pressed into a sweet pudding, mine comes from a box. Yorkshire pudding is made from scratch (recipe below)

3) If you had to choose, would you prefer corn pudding or figgy pudding?

I don’t like either one. We used to have a figgy pudding and plum pudding on Christmas day more for the sake of tradition than anything else. It generally was a mail order acquisition, I think, from relatives in the Midwest. We eventually went with pie as I got older.

4) Have you ever finger painted with pudding?

Can’t say that I ever did. Food was not something you played with in our house. It was too scarce.

5) Finally, what is the matter with Mary Jane?

I don’t know this poem. I don’t remember having difficulty eating anything but canned peas so I seldom had a problem at the table. The expectation was that you had to eat “three Girl Scout bites.” I don’t know where the Girl Scouts got into the mix but it would shame me enough to eat the damned 3 mouthfuls to move on. Oh, yeah, I got the ‘starving children in China or Armenia’ story but not often.

Bonus: Share a favorite recipe that includes pudding!

Traditionally this pudding was in lieu of potatoes. It was served with roast beef and gravy. It was and still is a holiday treat in our family. It was rare to have a roast of beef so it made the day even more festive.

Yorkshire pudding
Ingredients
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup pan drippings from roast prime rib of beef
Directions
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Sift together the flour and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, beat together the eggs and milk until light and foamy. Stir in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Pour the drippings into a 9-inch pie pan, cast iron skillet, or square baking dish. Put the pan in oven and get the drippings smoking hot. Carefully take the pan out of the oven and pour in the batter. Put the pan back in oven and cook until puffed and dry, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with gravy instead of potatoes. Some people make these like popovers in muffin or popover tins but we always had a metal pan.