Mother's Traditional Christmas Puddings 71

We all had a stir, with the wooden spoon, and to make a wish,

Four silver thrupeny pieces added, one to each basin we'd pitch.

Mother's Traditional Christmas Puddings

Now on 30 November it is Advent Sunday, and its before this date is when you are meant to make your traditional Christmas puddings.
At home when we were kids we all helped on the mixing of all the ingredients including the insertion of the silver thrupenny piece into each pudding basin, then we knew they were actually in each of the puddings that were made. All four were steamed in the old Birco electric boiler before storeing on the top shelf in the pantry till christmas.

  It encouraged us to eat the pudding at Christmas time always hoping to be the one that finds the coin, but alas at times it got swallowed accidentally.
  Mother never lost any, she watched carefully the following day, and the coin was always recovered. I don't know how many times those coins had been through our guts, but they were recycled and used the following year no matter what.


We still have two of those silver thrupenny bits in a mug in the cupboard right now, if only such coins could tell a tale of their travels over all the years

Our puddings would be more than double the size in this picture, rarely did it ever have time to put holly on top, and it was deemed to be too dangerous to fire with four young lads to keep an eye on, and a waste of good brandy.

Mothers Christmas Puddings

Mother made her Christmas puddings, well before Advent,

Got to be stored and maturing, a month or more to ferment,

All the ingredients were ready, along the pantry shelves,

Big bowl for mixing fetches out, for a wooden spoon she delves.

Raisins, currants, sultanas, beef suet, sugar and flour,

Nuts, eggs, lemon juice n' peel, stale bread too hard to devour

Then to the bottles, Guinness and the Brandy,

A mixture of spices, everything's on the table ready and handy.

Thirteen ingredients there is said to be, to mix all in the bowl

To fill four big basins, keep us going till New Year was her goal

We all had a stir, with the wooden spoon, and to make a wish,

Four silver thrupeny pieces added, one to each basin she'd pitch.

Puddings tied down with a cloth, corners pulled up tied on top,

Steamed for a good two hours, stored on top shelf she'd pop,

Cool it was would store for months, in fact its only one,

Exiting it was to see who, gets the thrupeny piece be-gum.

The thrupeny pieces mother kept, safe from year to year,

Same ones boiled every time, occasionally swallowed I fear,

She watched so closely following day, lose them she would not,

These were rare when we were kids, and dug it out the pot.

It had been a long tradition, for these puddings that she makes,

Made them every year the same, not long does it take,

Save one for Easter time, another special day,

See who's got the thrupeny piece, the one who shouts hooray.

Countryman

Part of the secret of success of life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)