The Finished Product
I like to do things bass-ackwards. I went to Loblaw’s yesterday and they had a big display of dried fruits and nuts of every kind and so I went crazy and bought a wide selection and then went online to find something to make. I found this: a pineapple, carrot, apricot Christmas pudding.
I checked, had all the ingredients, right down to the fresh nutmeg, because I really like using freshly ground nutmeg on French toast.
I even messed around in the back of the cupboards in my poorly equipped kitchen (no parer!) and found a pudding mould. It’s very old, as it has enamel inside, so it probably belonged to Marion Nicholson of Tighsolas.
Now, when I was a kid in the 60′s, I helped my mom in the kitchen. She was a great cook, but she was impatient. So I got to do the drudge work. I greased the pans (as I had to do here) and I cut out the wax paper for the moulds (as I had to do here) and I blended butter and sugar (as I had to do here but I treated myself and softened it in the microwave.
So I felt a bit like a little girl doing all this – and I am no little girl. And then I blended the fruits fresh and dried and nuts and carrots and I mixed the flour part (using a whisk and not a sifter, like I used as a kid and which often made my hands cramp).
And then I poured the mixture into the old mould that (probably) once belonged to Marion and swiped out the remainder with my finger, and licked it up, just as I used to do as a kid. (I know, today, THEY say NOT to do this, as the eggs might be contaminated. My gosh, they take the FUN out of everything these days. No wonder kids are glued to their iPods for lack of real life inspiration.)
Now, if this pudding tastes half as good as the batter, it’ll be great!
We used to have plum pudding as a child, too. At Christmas. But my mom bought it already made and steamed it and sometimes set it on fire with brandy and always served it with lemon sauce. No one ate it. It was too heavy for us. Also at Christmas she fed us alcohol, not in the form of wine (as my parents didn’t drink wine) but of creme de menthe. On vanilla ice cream. I ate it despite not liking the dish at all. But I can see by the Fannie Farmer Cookbook that this dessert was served in finer eating establishments 
I was a caffeine addict back then. Yes, I preferred by far my mother’s Cafe Bavarian, the recipe for which she got off the inside of a Carnation Milk label. She eventually lost the recipe and could never replicate it. And to this day,I have not been able to find it, online, either. The recipe called for strong instant coffee, ice cubes, carnation milk, as well as whipped cream and gelatin. The gelatin concoction sat on a graham wafer crust. And it was garnished with slivers of semi sweet chocolate.
I ate that dessert every chance I got, two or three heapings, and I was still nicknamed “String Bean.” A string bean I am no more.
My mother is French and liked to tell the story of how Plum Pudding got its name. (Not from plums). She said that when a Frenchman discovered the dessert, he said “C’est comme de (du?) Plomb. LEAD.)
Speaking of lead, I am being very brave to use this old mould, or am I? Are utensils today more or LESS toxic than in the old days. I suspect it’s a toss-up. Anyway, I used ‘organic’ dried fruit, so no sulphates.
