Spotted dick

Ah, the pudding that elicited a million schoolboy sniggers. Now apparently re-branded “spotted dog”. What a load of nonsense.

My tastes in food were strongly influenced by old-fashioned school dinners – in my primary school years in the late 1970s this meant the sort of school food that was probably pretty much unchanged since the early 20th century and was for the most part actually cooked on premises with real ingredients by short, enormous-chested woman in nylon gingham and hygienic head-ware. I have strong memories of their tray-baked sponge puddings and things like jam roly-poly. Spotted dick, however, was never one of my favourites. Dried fruit, swollen up again in the preparation always faintly nauseated me.

This was, however, a request from my mum, after seeing a version of the recipe by Lindsey Bareham in the Times. Not sure how long that link will last given Murdoch’s aggressive stance on free access to online newspaper content. But if you do fancy a blast of early-mid 20th century British pud, and the link is still live, that recipe’s worth a try.