A Century of Digestion.

Christmas dishes should be fittingly concocted to celebrate a century of digestion. Up to the present this phase of our progress appears to have been overlooked and underdone. For instance: “from spotted dog to superhet, two-way, streamline brandy-fed duff!” One, the mother of necessity emanating from tradition but short on ingredient, being rather a pale reflection of a pudding with freckles, or a case of culinary anaemia, due to the uncertainty of overseas transport for the current spice and raisin trade; but, nevertheless, attacked by the hardy pioneer with a digestive courage and determination now lacking in a community which shies at chewing anything tougher than blancmange. That was a pudding which had to be overpowered before it could be reduced to food. But, whilst it leapt and bounded in its flour-bag overcoat in the three-legged iron pot over the open fire, it sang a Christmas carry-all to our grandmothers and grandfathers just as truly as does the more richly-comparisoned product of the present day.

Two, the duff de luxe with the skin you love to touch and an interior redolent of all the spices, myrrh and frankincense of the East and containing everything a pudding could wish for except the jaw-developing qualities which reposed in its 1840 counterpart, constructed mainly with flour and enthusiasm, and consumed with that grim determination which attacked both bush and pudding with axe and fire.