PLUM PUDDINGS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17223, 14 December 1923, Page 4 (Supplement)

PLUM PUDDINGS.

MADE IN THOUSANDS. I have made over 100,000 plum pud- | dings since the beginning of November, j anil 1 suppose some firms have made j anything from ten to twenty times that number, apart from the small confec- { tioner with his odd thousand or so (writes “A Pudding Maker” in the London ‘‘Daily Mail”). It is fairly certain, then, that folk do not still make their plum puddings at home. Earlv in September prices of tho variout currants, raisins and sultanas that are on the way to England come in, and, later, samples are delivered, tested thoroughly, and eventually decided on. Only the very best are good enough. The white bowls have been bought and already are being delivered—and the bowl itself adds 5d to Is Bd, to the cost of the pudding this year. The fruit arrives and “ The Day ” is at First the currants have to be picked; no kitchen cloths and hair sieves! The currant-picking machine is fixed up and connected to an electric motor, the currants are fed into a hopper and pass

into a cylinder enclosing a long, revolving wheel to which are attached six brushes, each an inch broad and 3ft long, which take off every stalk. Raisin stoning machines take out every stone. I remember eating puddings made at home wherein lay proof that the raism-stoner—human. o.f course—had failed lamentably in. his job. The peel-chopping machine is cor.rected up to its motor and merrily cuts up tons of peel-—orange, lemon, and citron—with no handling once it is working. The suet arrives all ready chopped' fine as grains of rice. Crates of eggs arrive from Denmark, and each egg is broken separately into a bowl lest a wrong one should get in and spoil a hundredweight of pudding. The wine arrives. Then comes the actual first mixing. Sugar and suet, flour and fruit, almonds and eggs. The chief cook comes along and stirs the mass; imagine stirring a hundredweight of sticky pudding, even if the spoon is 4ft long and weighs 71b! Then girls with big spoons fill bowls with the mixture; each bowl being weighed as it is filled. Other girls tie the bowls over with grease-proof paper, auc they are packed into the steamers. Five hundred go into each steamer at a time, the steam is turned on, and a start has really been made. Hours afterwards the steamers are opened and the puddings taken out. Then comes the “ proof of the pudding.’ Youngest and oldest in the factory are there on one pretext or another, each with his or her spoon.