suet Puddings

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

  • About

suet puddings a speciality of Britain, especially England, are traditionally based on beef suet (see above). Its high melting point gives to suet puddings (and to suet crust and suet dumplings) a lightness not readily attainable with other fats. Among the oldest puddings in which suet was used were the ancient sausage-like white puddings. Suet paste appeared in the Middle Ages in small dumplings of the college pudding type; but it did not become really important until the introduction of the pudding-cloth at the beginning of the 17th century, which made large boiled puddings feasible.