First Christmas with my in-laws to be, each visitor bringing a contribution to our house in Sydney. 6 weeks prior, MiL brings home-made pudding from Canberra, wrapped in a nice cloth. House is full of stuff and kitchen is small, so I suggest it goes in a cupboard. Maybe she doesn’t hear?
On Christmas day, MiL asks whether I have the pudding “ready”… hmmm? I guess she thinks I know how to prepare it? Turns out it needs to be steamed to heat through! I pull it out of the cupboard, in it’s lovely cloth, but it turns out there’s a layer of plastic and inside that the pudding has gone mouldy.
We scrape off the surface, rewrap it and stick in a pot of boiling water to heat through. It’s not very big any more!
But it tastes fine with some custard and “hard sauce” which I also didn’t know how to make.
I was the unimpressive potential daughter-in-law that year and it took some time for her to forgive me.
I remember my mother sweating over a wood stove on Christmas day to cook the traditional meal. People felt quite daring when they started rebelling against the hot roast with trimmings, the boiled pudding, hot custard etc. As kids the best part for us, aside from presents, was watermelon and going to the beach (at Coolum).
