[Gary_W]

Steamed suet puddings were a staple of my childhood; you would regularly get either suet pudding to have with the main meal (with lots of gravy of course) and on other days you would get either spotted dick or steamed apple pudding. The latter is bramley apples in the bottom of a pudding bowl topped with suet pudding. Again, eaten with custard and is a high-carb wonder. Light, summer food it is not.

My folks still eat this kind of thing no matter what the weather; they are from that generation. Most Brits now are incredibly adventurous about food and will happily steal ideas from all over the world. I really like this. Take an average Italian person, and you will find they won't gladly try something that is made outside their local area, let alone gladly eat Thai. Over the weekend, my daughter helped me make sushi rolls, we cooked Indian dhals and koftas, went out for Dim Sum and also knocked up some Pasta. Oh, and I did Jambalaya the other night. Yes, we also go the trad English route at times but most modern Brits have almost distanced themselves from the old recipes in favour of borrowing influences from elsewhere. It's a shame in some ways as the best of British food is very good indeed. Most other European nations are fiercely proud of their national dishes and will still eat them in preference to 'foreign' food. Brits aren't like that these days, though there are still a few. Thanks to Helen for the recipe

The naming is a little dicey; spotted dick over here means the same thing it does over there. 'My wife gave me a lovely spotted dick last night' is not something you want to tell the folks at the office, though with British humour such statements are enjoyed in a 1970's 'carry on' film kind of way. People also refer to cigarettes as 'fags'. Telling someone you are going to 'smoke a fag' might get one arrested in the 'hood', but is a perfectly acceptable statement in the UK. Also in the US, your 'fanny' is your rump. The first time I heard that someone was wearing a 'fanny bag' I nearly wet myself as it's something rather different over here....

IIRC, one of the supermarket chains went politically correct a few years ago and re-branded the dish in question as 'Spotted Richard'. One National outcry later which involved old ladies barricading the aisles with shopping trolleys and the name was changed back.

Gary