Spotted dick (also known as spotted dog or railway cake) is a traditional British steamed pudding, historically made with suet and dried fruit (usually currants or raisins) and often served with custard.
Non-traditional variants include recipes that replace suet with other fats (such as butter), or that include eggs to make something similar to a sponge pudding or cake.[1]
Etymology
Spotted is a reference to the dried fruit in the pudding (which resemble spots).[2] The word dick refers to pudding. In late 19th century Huddersfield, for instance, a glossary of local terms stated: "Dick, plain pudding. If with treacle sauce, treacle dick."[3] This sense of dick may be related to the word dough.[4] In the variant name spotted dog, dog is a variant form of dough.[5]
History
The dish is first attested in Alexis Soyer's The modern Housewife or ménagère, published in 1849,[6] in which he described a recipe for "Plum Bolster, or Spotted Dick – Roll out two pounds of paste ... have some Smyrna raisins well washed".[7]
The name "spotted dog" first appeared in 1855, in C.M. Smith's "Working-men's Way in the World" where it was described as a "very marly species of plum-pudding". This name, along with "railway cake", is most common in Ireland where it is made more similar to a soda bread loaf with the addition of currants.[2]
The Pall Mall Gazette reported in 1892 that "the Kilburn Sisters ... daily satisfied hundreds of dockers with soup and Spotted Dick".[3]
The name has long been a source of amusement and double entendres; reportedly restaurant staff in the Houses of Parliament decided to rename it "Spotted Richard" so it was “less likely to cause a stir”.[8]
See also
- Clootie dumpling, a similar Scottish Traditional Pudding
- Figgy duff, a bag pudding from Newfoundland
- Poutchine au sac, Métis bag pudding from Western Canada
- List of fruit dishes
- List of steamed foods
References
- ^ "Spotted Dick". British Food: A History. 2014-01-23. Retrieved 2022-03-10.
- ^ a b "What's the origin of "spotted dick"?". The Straight Dope. 2002-08-27. Retrieved 2022-03-10.
- ^ a b Ayto, John (2012). The Diner's Dictionary: Word Origins of Food and Drink. Oxford University Press. p. 349. ISBN 978-0199640249.
- ^ Newman, Kevin (15 July 2021). Pond Puddings and Sussex Smokies: Sussex's Food and Drink. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-9707-9.
- ^ Ashley, Leonard R. N. (1968). "Scoff Lore: An Introduction to British Words for Food and Drink". Names. 16 (3): 238–272. doi:10.1179/nam.1968.16.3.238.
- ^ Eric Partridge (2003). The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang. Routledge. pp. 5085–. ISBN 978-1-135-79542-9.
- ^ John Ayto (1994). A Gourmet's Guide: Food and Drink from A to Z. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280025-1.
- ^ "Spotted Dick 'renamed Spotted Richard' to spare blushes in parliament". Sky News. Retrieved 2020-08-02.
Recent Comments