Spotted Dick and a lesson about Pudding.

The second International Cuisine Night is almost here, and I've been busy looking up recipes.

As a recap, February's cuisine is British and I will be making an appetizer, main dish, and dessert. Deciding on the appetizer and main dish was easy - families in Great Britain have a tradition of a Sunday roast (usually beef) with a serving of Yorkshire pudding and potatoes.

Now when most of you think of pudding, an image similar to this probably comes to mind:

Mmmm - American chocolate pudding

But in Great Britain, the term pudding can mean any type of sweet dish served after a main course. The fun thing about the Yorkshire pudding is that it can be used as a dessert or a side dish with beef roast. At one point in history it was used as an appetizer to make people more full before the main course (back when meat was difficult to come by and was in smaller portions). This is what Yorkshire pudding is expected to look like:

Yorkshire pudding

I lucked out and might be getting a family Yorkshire pudding recipe from one of Jonathon's British co-workers. I'm hoping I get the recipe in time, but I might not. It is hand written and the gentleman's mum is typing it up for me. If I don't get it by Sunday I'll use another source for the recipe. However, I will still use the family's recipe later on to compare the results.

As for dessert, I'm having a devil of a time figuring out what to make. I want something that appeals to me, but most of the British desserts consist of cakes with dried fruit. Ick. Which brings me to the catchy entry title: spotted dick. I seriously thought it was a dish made from a poor animal's genitalia, but as it turns out it is not made by that. At all (Thank God). It's just another type of British pudding. It's called spotted due to the dried fruit pieces, and dick because... well, I can't find a consistent answer anywhere for that. My best guess is that it started as an inside joke for some giggles, but then got way out of hand and was never corrected.

Spotted Dick

As amusing as it might be for me to make a spotted dick, I've decide to keep searching for a dessert that doesn't require raisins or such nonsense.


Fun fact: I totally held my breath when I did a Google Image Search for spotted dick.