The Obvious:

The Not-So-Obvious:

Whortleberry Pudding with Brandy Sauce
3 cupfuls of flour
1 cupful of molasses
1/2 cupful of milk
1 teaspoonful of salt
a little cloves and cinnamon
1 teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little of the milk
1 quart of huckleberries or blueberries, floured Boil in a well-buttered mold two hours. Serve with brandy sauce.

Brandy or Wine Sauce
1 heaping teaspoonful of cornstarch, or 1 tablespoonful of sifted flour
1 cupful of sugar
piece of butter as large as an egg
1/2 cupful of brandy or wine Stir cornstarch in a little cold water to a smooth paste (or instead use sifted flour); add to it a cupful of boiling water, with sugar, butter, boil all together ten minutes. Remove from the fire and when cool stir into it brandy or wine. It should be about as thick as thin syrup.

Source: The White House Cookbook, 1887

*post-Thanksgiving meal update: I did indeed make the pudding for Thanksgiving, which seemed to go over fairly well considering that Americans don’t generally indulge in English-style pudding at the communal table. I made a few changes to the recipe, however. First of all, I don’t have a proper pudding bowl so I just used a mixing bowl with a plate on top for a lid. I had to use more milk than the recipe called for to get the right consistency — maybe a 1 cup instead of 1/2 cup? And for the berry I used blueberries instead of whortleberries. The whortleberry is an archaic name which refers to a few different kind of berries, most commonly a huckleberry, which I didn’t even try to track down. As far as the sauce goes, I made a rum sauce instead of the brandy sauce. The rum sauce version which was definitely richer as it used half a cup of butter instead of a “piece of butter as large as an egg”.

Rum Sauce