Alan Davidson

Dock Pudding

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

dock pudding a mixture of ‘dock’ (i.e. bistort, Polygonum bistorta), oatmeal, onions, and nettles, thickened with oatmeal and boiled together. There are those who profess to love it, and those who loathe it. It tastes something like a cross between spinach and asparagus. Once cooked, it is fried by the dollop or slice in plenty of old-fashioned, real, bacon fat to counteract the strong taste and green slimy consistency. When it has a crisp, fatty, salty outside, it is more palatable.

Dock pudding has become synonymous with Calderdale (in W. Yorkshire), especially Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, and Todmorden, ever since 1971. It was in that year that the first competition to find the World’s Champion Dock Pudding Makers was held there. However, dock pudding is by no means unique to Calderdale. The truth is that bistort has been used in many similar pottages and puddings for centuries, in many areas of England and S. Scotland.