A Delicious Contest

Sep 5, 2013

The Greater Midwest Foodways Heirloom Recipes Contest was held last Sunday at the Woman’s Expo building at the South Dakota State Fair. Four women competed in this year’s event — all brought delicious food with deep roots in their family histories. (The recipes and stories will be posted at greatermidwestfoodways.com at a later date.)

There was also a bonus recipe —well-creased instructions for making suet pudding, provided by Avis Hardie of Clear Lake. Her grandmother, Susan Jenvey Clarke Tranter, brought it to South Dakota when she emigrated from England to Hand County in 1908. Suet is the hard white fat around the kidneys and loins of cattle and other animals, and was once a common ingredient in steamed puddings.

 

Suet Pudding 

2/3 cup of suet — chopped fine
1 cup of molasses (Tranter instructed, “I use syrup. 1/2 cup of molasses would be plenty by using more milk and sugar. Honey would be about the same sweetness as syrup. Honey I believe 3/4 of a cup.”)
1 cup of sweet milk
1 cup of raisins
1/2 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon nutmeg or other spice

Mix as written. Boil or steam 3 hrs. Half of this recipe makes a good pudding. Tranter wrote, “You know these little brown pudding pans I have. I use one of those for half the recipe.”