Secret to Plum Pudding Recipe in Grave

I became interested in Julia Gates (buried in Lower Mystic Cemetery) when the Mystic River Historical Society showed me her mournful Christmas letter to her husband. Fearing he was lost at sea, she didn't feel like preparing for Christmas, but knew she had to for the sake of her children. Here is an excerpt of her sad letter from my book, Mystic Seafarer's Trail, followed by Julia's incomplete recipe for plum pudding.

In December of 1871, while the residents of Mystic were preparing for Christmas, Julia Gates was sick with worry about the fate of her husband, Captain George Gates. He had left New York for San Francisco on August 18^th on the Mystic built ship, Twilight. It had been five months since Julia heard from him.  She had every right to worry in those perilous days when sailors still rounded Cape Horn to reach San Francisco.

Julia’s brother-in-law, Captain Charles H. Gates, and his son were last seen a year and a half earlier on June 1, 1870, embarking from San Francisco for England. As I wrote in an earlier chapter, they, along with 22 other crew members, were never heard from again.   

In Julia’s time, the voyage from New York to San Francisco took a bare minimum of three months. One week before Christmas, Julia wrote to her husband: 

Mystic River, Dec 18th, [18]71

My dear George,

When I sent my last letter, I thought I should certainly hear from you before I wrote again. but as yet there is no tiding from the Twilight and I am feeling great anxiety. It is five months today since you left New York and the time to me seems very long.  There is not a single moment that I am not thinking about you. I am daily and hourly hoping to receive some intelligence from you…

To live day after day in suspense is very unpleasant. I can hardly settle my mind to anything…I expect you will think I have got a fit of the blues. I do feel blue sometimes and I can not help it. But I shall feel better when I hear from you.

The children are very well. They are enjoying the sliding down the hill.  It rained yesterday and froze last night so today everywhere is ice. The Lot south of the house [218 High Street]. They slide the whole length with the Sled…The weather looks very much like a snow storm…

This is a busy week with those that are preparing for Christmas…but [I] do not feel much interested in it. The children are talking about Christmas gifts. And of course will expect something.  And the thought occurs, where and how will you spend Christmas Day. I do hope I may hear from you before next Monday [Christmas].  if not it will be a sad day to me…”

With love hoping to soon hear from you.       yours, Julia [i]  

 

Julia's Plum Pudding Recipe:

 

1/2 loaf bread soaked in milk, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/2 pound suet, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, salt, fruit  and spice. [2] 

 Questions for you, Dear Reader:
How much salt? Which fruit? What spice? What is suet and where do you get it? What do you do with these ingredients?

Answers to my questions as of 5/3/14:
I received the following e-mail from a nutritionist:

 

"Suet is the solid white fat from a beef animal, mainly from around the kidneys and internal organs. The one time I made a traditional plum pudding and needed suet I got it from a butcher.  Not a supermarket meat section where everything is already pre-packaged and wrapped in plastic, but a store with a real, live butcher.  He didn’t charge a cent for it, since in his point of view it was going into the waste bin. Suet is also used along with seed for winter bird feeders."

Dr. Elisabeth Schafer, author of Vegetable Desserts: Beyond Carrot Cake and Pumpkin Pie

When I asked Dr. Schafer if she would share the recipe she made it from, she said,"I no longer have the recipe but the family judged it 'okay,' not 'great.' We have so many better ingredients available to us today than did Julia, that I doubt most people would want to make and eat something with a chunk of solid fat.  I still make a steamed pudding for Christmas dinner but I use butter or margarine.  Better flavor, better health value.  Guests, who don’t even know what went into the pudding, generally ask for seconds."

 

Cindy Modzelewski sent this online recipe that gives us an idea of how it was made: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Superb-English-Plum-Pudding-20010

If any of you actually tries making it using Julia's known ingredients, please let me know how it comes out and I'll post your results--good or bad!

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[i] Letter from the Haley Collection of the Mystic River Historical Society.  Used by permission.

[2]. Recipe from  1990.005.0084  Haley Collection, Mystic River Historical Society, transcription by Beverley A. Gregg, Mystic Seaport Museum



To find out what happened to Julia's husband, please refer to Mystic Seafarer's Trail.

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