Figgy Pudding

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

figgy pudding is nowadays more sung about, in a well-known Christmas carol, than eaten. There is a traditional Yorkshire figgy pudding whose density approaches that of christmas pudding, and which may be allowed to mature in the same way. It consists of dried figs, chopped apples, carrot, breadcrumbs, flour, butter, eggs, brown sugar, black treacle, and lemon juice and rind; and it requires five hours’ steaming. There are also lighter versions.

The original figgy pudding may merely have been a ‘plum’ pudding—that is, with any dried fruit—for in Cornwall, the word ‘figgy’ is still used for raisins. Figgy pudding is sometimes eaten on Palm Sunday, possibly in memory of Christ’s cursing of the barren fig tree on that day.