Grant Allen: Stir in a touch of tradition (+recipes)

Nadia Lim, Joan Mary Longcroft and Grant Allen. Photo / Doug Sherring

Stir-it-up Sunday starts off the countdown to Christmas in the kitchen. Grant Allen organises a trio of wooden spoons

As old traditions fall away, new ones come along. Many of our food traditions are European in origin and often have an association with religious celebrations such as Easter or Christmas. Many were connected with seasonal cycles, harvesting, preserving, sowing - the yearly rhythm of food production.

With the increased use of fridges and freezers, food storage methods have changed drastically over the past 50 years. Bottling, preserving and jam-making have fallen victim as cooks become increasingly time poor. Religious observance has decreased and many of our new "traditions" are driven by retailers and our strange fascination with American lifestyles.

I'm thinking of Valentine's Day and Halloween as examples. I'd like to see the return of the Harvest Festival. As a child this was church-based but its origins were pre-Christian.

On this day, the altar would be groaning with vegetables, fruits and flowers. I seem to remember lots of pumpkins - I guess it was a service of gratitude for a plentiful harvest.
Another old English tradition has come to my attention and as the festive season is upon us it seems a good time to mention it.

Stir-it-up Sunday

The Christmas Day menu was fixed in New Zealand until comparatively recently. Despite being the middle of a Southern Hemisphere summer, the table would be laden with roasted meat or poultry and many side offers, an over-abundance of desserts, trifles, jellies, ice cream, cream, custard and, of course, a steamed Christmas pudding.

Dark and heavy with fruit, a "sixpence" would be cooked into the pudding, the finder to be blessed with extra luck. This would be followed by a Christmas cake. Heavy pickings!

Moving away from our British food heritage, lighter summer food, a barbecue or a casual picnic are more common and realistic ways to eat on Christmas day.

But in the spirit of British tradition, Stir-it-up Sunday is all about stirring the mixture of the Christmas pudding. The British have been taking part in the custom on and off for centuries, but it was made popular again when Queen Victoria's sweet-toothed husband Prince Albert persuaded their loyal subjects to once again "stir it up".

Christmas puddings were first served in the Middle Ages and contained chopped poultry, pheasant, partridge and rabbit, mixed with sugar, apples, raisins and candied oranges. In 1664, Puritans banned them, believing it to be custom unfit for Christians, but in 1714, King George I re-established the pudding as part of the Christmas feast.

The tradition always falls on the last Sunday before the Christian season of Advent. This year it's November 24, next weekend. Apart from honouring a time-honoured tradition, it's a good move to make your pudding five weeks before Christmas - one job you can tick off in the countdown to Christmas. Gather all the fruit and spices and your friends and family and start stirring on November 24. Everyone should take a turn to stir the pudding while making a wish. Don't forget to throw in a gold coin.

I got together with Joan Mary Longcroft, a cook and hostess from the old school, and Bite magazine's Nadia Lim to talk about Christmas puddings. It's not a hard task but there are a few tricks. The mix is more of a batter and should not be over-stirred.

It is important to have a pot big enough to hold plenty of water to steam-cook the pudding.

Place a trivet or a circular cake rack into the pot to keep the bowl off the bottom. Joan Mary's tip is to use a pizza pan if you don't have a trivet that fits.

Butter the inside of the pudding basin well before adding the mixture and butter a sheet of baking paper to cover the basin.

Use a rubber band to hold this tight before adding another layer of pleated tin foil. You need to pleat these covers to allow them to expand as the pudding cooks.

Being a superbly organised woman, Joan Mary brought her already made pudding for us to photograph while we mixed up a different recipe.

Hers is based on a Gordon Ramsay recipe. It's not too heavy but has all the traditional spiciness you would expect.

The recipe we made is another adapted one. The easiness of the cup-size measuring for all ingredients appealed to my laziness around accurate measuring.

Recipes

• Nadia's Mum's Prune Christmas Pudding
• Joan Mary's Christmas Pudding a la Gordon Ramsay
• One-Cup Wonder Christmas Pudding

Nadia's recipe is a family one from her mother. You can see more of Nadia's recipes in tomorrow's Bite magazine in the Herald.