Ask most people what food they associate with Yorkshire and the chances are they will say, ‘Yorkshire Pudding’. This ‘poem in batter’ (Weston & Lee, c.1935) is a food icon for the region, if not the known universe.
But – Queen of Ironies – the earliest mention of the recipe was in a book first published in 1737 in London! by an unknown author, with the snappy title of: ‘The whole duty of a woman, or, An infallible guide to the fair sex : containing rules, directions, and observations, for their conduct and behavior through all ages and circumstances of life, as virgins, wives, or widows : with … rules and receipts in every kind of cookery’.
This mentioned a ‘dripping pudding’ made using pancake batter in a similar way to the Yorkshire Puddings of today. Later, Hannah Glasse – another Londoner – published her ‘Art of Cookery Made Plain’ in 1747 and renamed the 1737 ‘dripping pudding’ into ‘Yorkshire Pudding’ (Brears, 2014).
Why Hannah Glasse gave the batter mix its ‘Yorkshire’ title is not clear. Peter Brears (2014) argues that the West Yorkshire mining regions could make a good claim for the origins of the pudding, as miners were provided with free coal and could afford to put large roasts on their tables. The use of pancake-style batters in cookery goes back into the Bronze Age (Rupp, 2018), so in a household regularly used to cooking roasts, the creative use of a batter for savoury cooking with meat was only a matter of time.
Yorkshire Puddings had originally been made by tipping the batter into the fat around the roasting meat, although this became adapted over the years to baking the pudding separately in its own dish – and a large metal square or rectangular one at that.
The small circular Yorkshire Puddings we find today in supermarkets appears to have originated from an early 20th century practice (and one that went back to Hannah Glasse’s original recipe) to save time, and space in the oven by dropping spoonfuls of batter into the fat surrounding the meat. This produced ‘Yorkshire Puffs’, rather than the separately cooked square puddings (Brears, 2014, p. 188).
Cooking the puddings became a matter of family pride, certainly in Yorkshire. They were never soggy, heavy, or lumpy, but as Stanley Holloway puts it in his ‘Yorkshire Pudden’ monologue, something that ‘melts in yer gob like snow, an’ as light as a maiden’s first kiss…’
So how to cook your Yorkshire Pudding? As ‘a poem in batter’ is about right, I’ll leave it to another Yorkshire poet, Ian McMillan, to tell you the way to cook the perfect Yorkie:
Yorkshire Pudding Rules
The tin must not gleam. Must never be new.
If there is dried sweat somewhere in its metal
It must be your mother’s. The flour must be strong
And white as the face of Uncle Jack
When he came back from the desert. The eggs
Must come from an allotment. The allotment
Must belong to your father-in-law.
The eggs have to be broken
With one swift movement over the bowl.
If there is dried sweat somewhere in its Pyrex
It must be your mother’s. The milk
Must have been delivered by Colin Leech
At 0430. The fork has to be an old one. The wrist
Must, simply must, ache after the mixing.
The flour must introduce itself to the yolk of the egg.
The egg has to be allowed to talk to the flour.
The milk must dance with them both: foxtrot, then quickstep.
The pepper must be scattered, black on off-white.
The oven has to be hotter than ever.
The lard has to come in a tight white pack.
The lard must almost catch fire in the oven.
The oven door must open and you must shout
Jesus Christ! as the heat smacks you in the chops.
Follow these rules
And the puddings will rise to heaven
And far beyond.
(McMillan, 2017)
For those more scientific minded, The Royal Society of Chemistry came up with their perfect Yorkshire pudding recipe, based on the most rigorous science known to Man!
Ingredients
- 1½ tablespoons of plain flour
- 1 egg
- half milk, half water to make a thin batter
- ½ teaspoon of salt
Method
- Put flour in a bowl, make a well in the centre, add the egg, stir until the two are combined
- Start to add the milk and water gradually, mixing as you go, until you have a smooth and thin batter
- Stir in the salt and leave it to stand for 10 minutes at room temperature (don’t refrigerate the batter)
- Put beef dripping into a square pudding tin (but don’t use too much)
- Heat in a hot oven until the fat starts to smoke
- Give the batter a final stir and pour into the tin
- Bake until well-risen (about 10-15 minutes)
Source: Dalesman, January 2009, p. 50.
Click onto the link for a recipe for Traditional Yorkshire Pudding
Sources:
Brears, P. (2014) Traditional Food in Yorkshire. Prospect Books
McMillan, I. (2017) The Guardian (online): ‘Yorkshire Pudding Rules’, 10.04.2017
Rupp, R. (2018) ‘Hot off the griddle. Here’s the history of pancakes’. National Geographic (online).
Weston, R.P. & Lee, B. (1935) Yorkshire Pudden. Reprinted in the Dalesman, Jan. 2009, pp.51-2
