Indian pudding is a traditional American
dessert, "a cold-weather classic" in the
cuisine of New England. It was commonplace in the colonial era and enjoyed a revival as part of
Thanksgiving Day celebrations in the late 19th century. It was found in most American cookbooks before 1900. The 20th century's commercial puddings with their industrially perfect smooth consistency displaced Indian pudding, and its cooking time had little appeal for the modern home cook. It is still associated with autumn holidays and occasionally revived by restaurants.
Colonial United States Seventeenth-century English colonists brought hasty pudding to North America and transformed it completely. Lacking wheat, they substituted
cornmeal, a grain they learned to cultivate from the
indigenous peoples, which led to the new name
Indian pudding, derived from their name for cornmeal,
Indian meal. They substituted milk, which was plentiful, for water and added locally available sweeteners, either
molasses or
maple syrup, and spices when available, typically
cinnamon and ground
ginger. Other traditional ingredients include butter and eggs for a smoother consistency and raisins and nuts for flavor and contrasting texture. Finally, Indian pudding was baked in a slow oven for several hours, transforming its texture from the porridge-like quality of hasty pudding to a smoother texture more typical of custard puddings. According to Kathleen Wall,
Plimoth Plantation's expert on colonial cooking, "The longer it cooks, the more liquid the gritty cornmeal absorbs, and the more it absorbs, the smoother the texture of your pudding."
Nasaump, a kind of meale pottage, unpartch'd. From this the English call their samp, which is the Indian corne, beaten and boild, and eaten hot or cold, with milke or butter, which are mercies beyond the Natives plaine water, and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for the English bodies. A modern version of this process could be seen in the dish known outside the Southern US as Southern
grits, made from hominy. Hominy is made through a process called
nixtamalization in which maize, a form of corn that has thicker ovary walls and a wider kernel than sweet corn. Maize is usually broken down by an alkaline substance, most commonly limewater, to pull out nutrients and increases its overall nutritional value, allows the product to be more easily ground, and improves the flavor and smell of the corn. In the common US vernacular,
sweet corn is referred to as the default moniker of "corn", and also does not need such an alkaline processing, as is the case with this form of maize. The words maize and corn are often, but not always, used interchangeably, hence the vast differences between processed and unprocessed versions of corn kernels mentioned above.
Early 19th century Eliza Leslie, an influential American
cookbook author of the early 19th century, includes a recipe for
flour hasty pudding in her 1840
Directions for Cookery, in Its Various Branches, and calls the corn type "Indian mush". She calls an oatmeal version
burgoo. She stresses the need for slow cooking rather than haste, and also recommends the use of a special
mush-stick for stirring to prevent lumps. (This mush-stick is perhaps related to the
spurtle, or the
pudding stick of the
nursery rhyme beating.)
Catherine Beecher's recipe: Wet up the Indian meal in cold water, till there are no lumps, stir it gradually into boiling water which has been salted, till so thick that the stick will stand in it. Boil slowly, and so as not to burn, stirring often. Two or three hours' boiling is needed. Pour it into a broad, deep dish, let it grow cold, cut it into slices half an inch thick, flour them, and fry them on a griddle with a little lard, or bake them in a stone oven. =="Yankee Doodle" and other literary references==