Plum Porridge for Christmas

I have cut this recipe to one-eighth of the original, and it still makes enough for a respectable dinner. Naturally, a large-batch recipe such as this implies that it was intended in the eighteenth century for a mammoth Christmas feast, enough for everyone on the plantation and perhaps the neighborhood as well. For all its elaborate ingredients, the porridge lacks one thing: fat. I can honestly say that aside from being pleasantly unusual, it is also low in cholesterol. I have sweetened it