Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

It's that time of the year - Christmas countdown - a kind of blog Advent calendar.  This year, my December blog posts will be about Christmas foods which will hopefully give you a glimpse of the history and traditions of many of the Christmas foods we love. Today, the first of December - it's Christmas pudding which is my favourite of all the rich delicious food of Christmas. Every family with English origins has a traditional recipe, and  in our family my  sister -in-law always brings the pudding to the Simmons family gathering - it is always fantastic, with brandy cream of course. A newer tradition in our immediate family is that my daughter -in-law makes the pudding in the traditional way of boiling in cloth for hours. I found this amazing recipe for Christmas pudding, no doubt published in most Australian newspapers of the time, but this copy comes from "The West Australian, 25 October 1927 EMPIRE CHRISTMAS PUDDING. A Royal Recipe. The King's chef,...

Christmas Countdown ...7... Pudding Coins  We all love Christmas pudding, but have you ever wondered where the practice of putting coins in the pudding came from? Getting a silver coin with your serving of pudding is said to bring good luck. This came possibly from the 1300s in Britain when a “Twelfth Night Cake” was eaten during the festivities on the twelfth night of Christmas. A dried bean or pea was baked inside the cake and whoever got it was “king” or “queen” for the night. The bean was sometimes a silver ring. Then it turned into a farthing or a penny and then after World War 1, a silver threepence or sixpence.  There was also a practice of using tokens in a pudding, which held predictions for the finder – a bachelor or spinster for the following year, or the prospect of marriage. These days, silver coins are no longer currency, but many (like me) have kept a few silver coins just to put in the pudding on Christmas Day.