carrot pudding (This is good.)

Published: Sun, 01/12/25

Updated: Mon, 01/13/25

** annotation * regular grind * bangs * brimful **

carrot pudding (drawing of lumpy brown thing on a plate. Thing has raisins, and raisins look like eyes, and thing has a mouth that's saying "This is good.")

When I was growing up, dessert on Christmas day was always carrot pudding. / As a teenager, this offended me. / (Teenage carolyn with tall curly bangs, dozens of bracelets, dangly earrings, sits at table in front of plate of carrot pudding. teen carolyn: It looks like a pile of dirt. / Who makes dessert out of potatoes?)

(Teen carolyn still sitting in front of carrot pudding [and also little pitcher of brown sauce]. Carrot pudding looks at Carolyn with its raisin eyes and says, "Kid, I'm your oldest food inheritance. You're gonna want me someday.")

I hadn't eaten it since the 1900s ... but when we visited my folks in November I took a photo of the recipe — which my mom's mom wrote down, probably sometime in the 70s?). / There's so much to appreciate.

Photo of the front of a recipe card, black & white, with [footnote numbers drawn on in orange]. Carrot Pudding / 1 c grated carrots / 1 " " potatoes / 1 c [1] flour / 1/2 c melted shortening (crossed out) [2] cooking oil [3] / 1 c sugar / [4] 1 t salt, soda, cinnamon, allspice, & nutmeg [7] 1/2 t / 1 c raisins / 1/2 c nutmeg (crossed out) nutmeats [6] / mix altogether [8] & steam 3 hours [9] (over) / (part of a circular stain on card [10]

[7] Let's take a minute to admire the capital C — that little loop at the top that almost turns it into a lowercase e. / (Repeated tries at writing "1 C" in my grandma's penmanship)

[2] Melted?! Shortening?! / [3] My mom's update. / [4] Just the economy of this line. / [5] Please celebrate this lowercase t: / many tries at writing "1 t" in my grandma's penmanship)

Whatever shape these days take for you, I hope they're full of delights.

[6] Not 1/2 c nutmeg! NutMEATS! / (Nutmeats?) / [7] Also my mom (who dislikes nutmeg) / [8] altogether (six little red hearts) / [9] 3 HOURS!!! / [10] This ring is the exact size of the bottom of ...

(Squat, green coffee can. Side of can: MJB Regular Grind Coffee. Top of can: SHAKE THE CAN!)

Back of recipe card: Use old type coffee cans [11] if possible. Fill (grease) 2/3 full, cover (different writing: w/waxed paper & lid [13]). Place in pan — fill up halfway on can with boiling water. Set oven [12] to about 300 — cook 3 hrs. (in different handwriting: makes two small puddings. double to make 3 lg puddings. cool w/lids off [13])

[11] THIS key piece of equipment. My grandmother saved a stack of these cans for years after they stopped making them. My mom ended up with 2 in a closet, and I brought them home so I could make the pudding. (How would one make this otherwise? I guess in some other type of tin...) / [12] We don't talk enough about SETTING the oven these days. / [13] Again, my mom clearing things up just slightly.

Current-day Carolyn looks at plate of carrot pudding and says: Do I peel the potato? Pudding says: Oh, NOW you're interested. / I don't remember.

Have I mentioned there's a sauce? You eat it with a sauce, and here, in its entirety, is my mom's recipe for it:

Black & white photo [orange annotation numbers] of a square of paper that could be a post-it note, with the following written on it: sauce for carrot pud / 1 c water / 1/2 c [14] sugar / 1 T corn. star / spices / cin / nut / all / vanilla / butter 1 T

[14] OMG my mom does the (capital C with a little loop on top) too! (but just for cups?)

I made the pudding and the sauce the first week of January. / The puddings smelled amazing during their 3-hour stay in the oven. / The sauce was like a bake-off technical challenge, and I added some bourbon and some orange zest and juice, and salt. / It came out brown and gloppy, and the pudding did look, on the plates, like fresh piles of compost. /

(Ingrid and Sophia, each sitting in front of a plate of carrot pudding) Sophia: I wonder if color photography has made us more concerned with how things LOOK than how they taste? / Ingrid: The sauce has the weirdest texture! / Everybody ate it with curiosity and good humor. / It tasted like carrot cake, but with a stringy texture (the potatoes?) that I've never experienced in any other food. It took me back like Proust's madeleine. (But with more veg.)

(lid of coffee can. Text around edge reads: SHAKE THE CAN! Regular grind / for the best "perked" coffee / Center has a woman holding a coffee can and the phrase It's quiet because it's brimful!

Please share This is good. with others who might like it!

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