THE PRINCE'S PUDDING

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 32, 7 February 1930, Page 11

THE PRINCE'S PUDDING

INGREDIENTS 300 TEARS OLD

' "When the Prince of Wales dined as a Bencher -with the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple in their historic hall recently, he ate Christmas pudding, some of the ingredients of which, tradition, maintains, were .first! put,', ia. tie. great mixing tub when Queen Elizabeth reigned, says the "Daily Mail." "-.

This tub was iv use onthe night;tiiat Queen Elizabeth saw, , Shakespeare's '' Twelfth Night' ? performed, in ..th c hall in 1601, and it haa not been cleaned. out since. ." •■• -.-■•, ■ . ■.'. ■

The ingredients of .the Christmas:: pudding for the. ceremonial dinners'areput in every year afresh, but some of. them are never removed. They ..remain ■■ there, preserved by the rieh'.ljrßiidv-r that permeates them, until next year's, mixing. . ' . . .•'•....'..- .." So it is that raisins and sultanas carried to this country under tie guns of. merchant adventurers, may well.have v found their way on to the royal plate..

There are probably, no dinnera. so' deeply ropted in tradition, as .tho^e p£ the Middle Temple. ..'■ . ■■.■.::

On the barristers' table is an ancient: horn of snuff, which is passed round

with great ceremony. '' , I Diners are grouped into "messes'', of four. Each mess has a captain, and. custom decrees that he shall drink first.| If, through ignorance or inadvertence,i' another member tafcos that privilege, \ he has to buy the mess a bottle of wine.' 5 Those present at tho dinner included '- many women mpmbers and." students..! Outsiders arc only admitted on giiest; nights and at .'.'call" dinners, ;whte|:ej new members are called to.thfi ,8«V.2 On that occasion.they. can.invitja three* friends to their mess, but on Oft 4c- -! count must one be a solicitor. .■.'..'"■"..

Indeed, a solicitor may neVcr<liiie there, because to 'entertain a soliijijor might be construed as "hugging;. :^ii attorney." ... ' :~"\ ... ' . ;:.."''v.',.'.'.