Now Bring Us Some Figgy Pudding

Just finished watching Julie/Julia a few days ago, so perhaps that is why I was inspired to blog about figgy pudding.

Yep, the self same figgy pudding in the carol. I kinda came to making figgy pudding for the first time this year through the back door. You see, my fig tree, which last year mostly fed the birds, decided to have some really serious plant sex this year. All that sex, all those little babies in the form of wonderful figs.

I guess the flavor of figs is an aquired taste. I only recently became a fig fan, mostly because of this darned fig tree with its profligate sex. Last year, I was waiting until they turned a sort of burgundy brown, which I THOUGHT was the signal the fruit was ready to eat. Wrong.

When they are burgundy brown, the figs are actually almost rotten and extremely mushy, which is the birds' idea of a Baskin-Robbins triple scoop with fudge sauce AND sprinkles.

This year, after discovering when figs are really ripe, I picked figs. And picked. And picked. And picked. I made gallons of fig jam, I made my version of fig newtons, I gave a local chef pounds of the fruits. I don't know what he did with them, but knowing his reputation, he probably made a luscious sauce for pork. Or a souffle. Or something.

So anyway, the fig tree was still producing. I think it must have continued to produce fruit for 3-4 weeks. Now, as I've said, I'm a fig fan, but this was really too much. Having been raised to NEVER waste ANYTHING, I started drying figs. I have a countertop dryer and for several weeks, the poor thing blew warm dry air on tons of figs.

It was at this point (yes, I'm kinda slow) that I realized I had no idea what to DO with dried figs. We're talking tens of pounds of fruit, even accounting for the dried fruit being lighter than the fleshy fruit. I'm a fig fan, but not THAT big a fan.

Suddenly, Julia Child popped into my head and started singing "Now bring us some figgy pudding" in that impossibly lyrical-yet-somewhat-annoying voice she had. Figgy Pudding. What in the heck is that???

I did what any early 21st century researcher would do. I Googled. (funny that this word has become a verb, what?) Google pointed me to literally HUNDREDS of recipes for figgy pudding. Who knew that figgy pudding was such a popular recipe, since everyone I know has said, "Figgy pudding? You're making figgy pudding...like in the song? What is it?"

I'm slow, as I've pointed out. I thought that if I found a recipe at all, it would be in some obscure Chaucerian-age book located in the Vatican archives. And yet, here were hundreds to choose from. So I started reading. And reading. And reading.

I found out that figgy pudding is a sort of cross between a bread pudding and a fruit cake. I finally settled on a recipe that was featured on a cooking show on NPR. These people, I thought, are esoteric enough to be experts on figgy pudding, but practical enough to have altered the recipe so that those of us who know our way around a kitchen could make it, despite not being professional figgy pudding bakers.

I misspoke. It turns out that figgy pudding isn't baked, at least the original wasn't (though some of my rejected recipes bake it). It's steamed. And here's the best part of all...YOU POUR BRANDY ON IT AND SET IT ON FIRE!!!! I have never in my life lit on fire (at least, on purpose) any of my culinary creations. I tend to be the type of cook who sticks with the hospital auxiliary published cookbooks which feature a lot of Jello and mayonaise in cakes and potluck casseroles in their selections. My favorite cookbook is a very dog-eared Better Homes and Gardens red-checked number (you no doubt have seen this cookbook on your grandmother's shelf).

So here I am, steaming a cake and lighting it on fire!!! I feel so adverturous and out there. So "outside the box" and avant garde. I have a notion of what it must taste like, from reading the ingredients. But I have no idea at this point if it will taste good. Maybe it will be one of those offerings to my family where they laboriously eat it, telling me it's the best thing they've ever had but no, they are too full for any more. When people ask for seconds of dessert, after a huge holiday meal, you know you've struck a chord. I have visions of this being a "no seconds for me" kind of dessert. Something you can say you've tried, but secretly think "so this is why no one makes figgy pudding any more."

One advantage to making figgy pudding, you can make it up to three weeks in advance and it keeps. Due to the ingredients, I imagine it's one of those dishes that improves with age.

So several mornings in advance of our Christmas dinner, I made a figgy pudding. All by myself. Another thing you should know about making figgy pudding is that it's one of those recipes that requires that you make this mixture and then that mixture and then fold them together and then you make two more mixtures and then fold these together and then...you get the idea. Many steps and every conceivable bowl and saucepan in the kitchen is dirtied in the construction.

The recipe calls for brandy. Lots of brandy. Which you use to reconstitute the dried figs and then light THAT on fire. So here I have this flaming saucepan in my kitchen while I'm attempting to make bread crumbs! I could scarcely take my eyes off the saucepan in flame.

I finally assembled all the parts and then assembled all of the assemblies and scraped the final mixture into a Bundt pan. I dragged out my water bath canner (the only container in my house that would accomodate the Bundt pan), filled it with water and gently lowered the cake into the water bath. The recipe instructs you to cover the cake pan with aluminum foil and cover the water bath with foil as well. Then you put the top on the water bath and wait.

Two hours. That's how long it takes to steam the figgy pudding. Due to all the foil and the scalding water, one cannot look at the pudding during cooking. I held my ear to the side of the water bath to insure that it was gently simmering, but other than that, I had to trust NPR that they know what they're doing. (That and the INCREDIBLE smell! It really smells good.)

I am now officially a figgy pudding maker. But what does it taste like, you may ask? Search me. I haven't yet served it, so I have no idea. Will update the blog when I know. I will also let you know if I burn the house down on Christmas in my flaming attempt to be "out there."

What else can I do with dried figs?

Post Script: The Figgy Pudding tasted really good, but I had left-overs...guess it's one of those, "No, no seconds for me" dishes.

Being myself

My childhood taught me that you have to behave, be nice and not disagree with people or people won't love you. You should always live a good, Christian life (whether it's not stealing or not playing cards) because no one will like you if you don't. And for God's sake, don't speak your mind or people REALLY won't like you. Just agree with the majority's moral standards and let it go at that.

Another important lesson from my childhood was paying attention to "What will people think?" This was a major theme, to alter your behavior so that "People" will think well of you. Don't go to that guy's house unchaparoned or "People" will think you are not a good girl (and, more importantly, they won't LIKE you). So when you ignore that stricture and go to the guy's house unchaparoned and get raped, it's YOUR fault, not the guy's, right? The not-good girl had it coming and SHE is the one who slipped, morally speaking.

Unfortunately, recently, I've found this still to be true. On Facebook, I've reconnected with several friends from grade school days. They are mostly still in the same home town, still insular and conservative. So, I express my opinion on various political matters and, surprise, they don't like me because my views don't match theirs. I made the mistake of having an opinion which doesn't jive with their moral standards.

In my late teens (always the late bloomer), I tried very hard to behave badly...couldn't even do that very well. My biggest rebellion was to smoke cigarettes (a rebellion I'm still paying for, unfortunately). I hung out with the "stoners" but they wouldn't include me in their stoner sessions because they thought I was a narc. I tried to hang out with the "good" kids, but I might be a stoner and a not-good kid. I got the reputation for being "loose" without ever actually having been "loose". I didn't get to have fun and still got blamed for having it! To my family and former friends, I'm a black sheep and a not-good girl. To my friends, I'm impossibly conservative and too good a girl.

I once played a board game where one is given a moral situation and then has to choose from several reactions to that situation. Then the other players decide whether or not one would actually react to the moral situation in that way. I drew a moral situation which had actually happened to me in real life. So I chose the alternative that I had actually done.

Turns out the game is really about whether you are a good liar. The other players, most of whom had known me for many years, ALL decided that I was lying and that no one would have chosen the moral high ground in that situation. I was devastated, not only because I lost the game, but because I didn't understand why everyone understood me so poorly. Does everyone else in the world have this cloud hanging over them...that people don't believe they're as good as they are and nothing will change their minds? I've told several people close to me who didn't know me as a child that I was a very good girl, mostly to knowing smirks. They don't believe me. Makes me wonder if I REALLY understand anyone else, at all.

I believe in situational ethics. Whatever the most loving thing to do is what is the most moral. Under this moral code, murder is never acceptable but euthanasia might be. (Did you know that the Bible distinguishes between "murder" and "killing"?) I once discussed this with a woman, a good Christian Southern woman, who said that she didn't believe in situational ethics...that ethics do not change EVER, but that the most moral act depends on the circumstance. (!!!???!!!)

I lived for a time with a man who was a chronic liar. I think he actually couldn't help it. I think he'd lied for so many years that he was physically, morally and mentally incapable of telling the truth. (He was also as crazy as a loon, but that's another blog!) It took me several years to realize that he was lying and that, even on inconsequential topics, he COULDN'T tell the truth. His belief was that everyone lies, all the time, and it's no big deal to lie. He once told me that a mosquito I had just swatted wasn't a mosquito but was in fact a Equadorian flying gnat! I guess he was just practicing lying. I haven't practiced enough, evidently, 'cause even when I lie (like when I lie to set up a surprise birthday pary, for example), I can't get by with it.

Which leads me to believe that we all, having no experience with moral processes outside our own heads, believe that everyone has the same moral/immoral standards as our own. If you believe that everyone lies, then of course, it excuses your own lies. Everybody does it, right? We can't imagine someone always telling the truth, so we believe those people don't exist.

If one tells the truth, as best one can, then it is practically impossible to believe that others lie or even to tell when they are lying. And so we are gullible, believing in the good in everyone. If someone tells us that the Congress is planning death squads for the elderly, then we believe it because the person who told that big honkin' lie is a Christian and incapable of lying.

We watch the evening news and are shocked at the guy who kills his entire family and then himself. "How could anyone DO that?" we cry. How could anyone, let alone 19 anyones, fly planes into buildings and kill over 3,000 people? We struggle to understand the moral and emotional deficit of the serial killer, the killer who cannibalizes his victims, the suicide bomber, the rapist, the child molester.

The truth is, if we could understand the serial killer, the suicide bomber, the child molester, THEN WE WOULD BE THAT PERSON. If we understood this kind of depravity, then we would have the same depravity. So it's really a blessing that we DON'T understand the depravity. It means we have way higher moral standards than the person who COULD do that.

It is left to those of us who are good people to deal with the depraved amongst us because, it's a given that the depraved won't see anything wrong with it. As good, moral people, do we put those people to death? Do we lock them up and throw away the key? Do we lock them up for a time and then let them out to perhaps commit more depravity? We don't have many good options, do we?

We can't wrap our minds around the moral code of any other, so we assume that will behave just as we do. None of us understands the im/morality of any other.