Omniana/Volume 1/Plum Pudding

by Robert Southey and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

3. Plum Pudding.

The English pride themselves upon their roast beef, their plum pudding, and their constitution. The roast beef, where oil cakes have not been introduced, and there are no Gentlemen-feeders, is what it always was. But the plum pudding as well as the constitution, does not appear to be the same thing which was the boast of our forefathers. The Chevalier D'Arvieux^[1] made a voyage in the year 1658 in an English forty gun ship, and he gives the receipt for making one. Leur Pudding, says the Chevalier, etoit detestable. C'est un composé de biscuit pilé, ou de farine, de lard, de raisins de Corinthe, de sel et de poivre, dont on fait une pâte, qu'on enveloppe dans une serviette, et que l'on fait cuire dans le pot avec du boüillon de la viande; on la tire de la serviette, et on la met dans un plat, et on rappe dessus du vieux fromage, qui lui donne une odeur insupportable. Sans ce fromage la chose en elle même n'est pas absolument mauvaise.

T. 1. p. 154.

1. Arveo was the name of his family, whence the Harveys of England. The branch from which he sprung settled in Provence, and when he appeared at Court it was under the name of Arviou. Cette terminaison, says P. Labat, parut dure, et on s'accoutuma a l'apeller Arvieu. But when he was sent envoy extraordinary to Constantinople, M. de Lionne, the Secretary of State, being still dissatisfied with the name, la corrigea dans ses instructions, en ajoutant un x a la fin, et un d apostrophe au commencement.