Woah Nellie!
Indian Tapioca Pudding: Pleasant taste but presentation leaves a little to be desired
by Mary Jo David
As a child, I always loved tapioca, especially with mashed, fresh strawberries on top. So, as I was searching through 100-year-old recipes to try this month, is it any wonder that Indian Tapioca Pudding jumped off the page at me? Just in time for our November edition, consider it a nod to Thanksgiving.
Before deciding on this recipe, I perused the pages from the November 1923 weekly issues of the Stockbridge Brief-Sun. As is true most months, it wasn’t easy to decide which of Nellie Maxwell’s old recipes to try.
I didn’t have any trouble eliminating a few of the recipes, like Sautéed Tripe, Oysters with Macaroni, Beets Piquant, and Caramel Junket. (This last one called for a junket tablet that, upon googling, I found may be available in stores like Meijer and Walmart or online. But I’m on a deadline, people, so this recipe was out!)
I found a couple of interesting contenders, like Washington Pie and Boston Brown Bread, and a recipe for Planked Club Steak that left me puzzled with its first instruction to “Wash one cupful of butter… .” Another recipe—Commonwealth Chicken Soup—sounded very interesting because it instructed cooks to “Reduce the ‘liquor’ in which a good fat fowl has been cooked.” Perhaps 100 years ago people cooked their fowl in liquor, but I’m guessing it’s more likely that Nellie was imbibing as she worked and probably meant to type “liquid”!
In the end, Indian Tapioca Pudding won over all the others.
This was my first time cooking with pearl tapioca; previously, I’ve always used Minute Tapioca. Pearl tapioca takes some planning. This particular recipe requires two hours for soaking the pearls before draining them and adding them to the other ingredients.
The recipe also required the use of a double boiler. As a modern cook, I very often skip over the double boiler in lieu of using my microwave, with temperature settings, for the same purpose. But since I usually try to stay true to Nellie’s methods, I pulled out my trusty Revere Ware double boiler, which I inherited from my mom’s kitchen, and I got to work.
Indian Tapioca Pudding calls for “scalded milk,” which is really nothing more than milk that has been heated to not quite boiling. As I whisked the scalded milk and cornmeal in the top of the double boiler, my mind drifted to thoughts of my mom, who would be turning 100 years old over Thanksgiving weekend this year. I miss my mom often, but never more than when I’m making one of her recipes, opening one of her cookbooks, or using any of her old kitchen tools.
I found it interesting that, after mixing all the ingredients, and just before putting the baking pan into the oven, the last instruction says to cover the mixture with additional cold milk without stirring that milk into the mixture. As it happened, when the pudding came out of the oven, it all seemed to have blended together during the cooking process so leaving the additional milk on top was not a problem.
The finished pudding has a strong molasses flavor, which I happen to like but my husband did not. The consistency left something to be desired. Picture a baking dish full of Detroit-style Coney Island chili (hold the onions and mustard!).
Let’s just say it’s the kind of dish you might want to eat blindfolded!
Current photos by Mary Jo David
