Cheese pudding

Cheese pudding, a recipe from Ada Pearson’s 1913 Handbook of Cookery may or may not be a London variation on the elusive macaroni pudding associated without attribution to eighteenth century southeastern Connecticut and sometimes to church suppers there. Pearson was obsessive about thrift so the recipe is economical, and intriguing enough to try, although characteristically enough she underseasons the dish. Our version rectifies the oversight; for three or four as a side.

• 3¼  quarts milk
• salt
• 3 oz cornmeal
• 3 oz grated cheese
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter or beef dripping
• cayenne
• 2 teaspoons prepared English mustard (like Colmans)
• about a Tablespoon Worcestershire or mushroom ketchup
• butter for greasing an ovenproof pan

Preheat the oven to 425°

1. Bring the milk to a boil with the salt and slowly pour the meal into the pot stirring constantly.
2. Reduce the heat to the merest simmer and cook the slurry until it thickens, usually in about half an hour.
3. Stir in all the other ingredients and pour the pudding into a greased shallow pan.
4. Bake the pudding until the cheese melts and the top begins to brown, usually in about 10 minutes.

Notes:

-“If,” as Mrs. Pearson advises her reader, “any is left to get cold, it can be cut in pieces and fried in hot fat” like polenta, and good that way too.

-The ever frugal Mrs. Pearson cuts too many corners, substituting skim for whole milk and water for half of that, while also skimping on the cheese and mustard. She omits cayenne and sauce or ketchup altogether.