SWEET SURRENDER:

A trip to the Cotswolds and The Pudding Club

By CINDA CHAVICH

(Mickleton, UK) - Pudding. It’s just such a comfortable, silly, old-fashioned word. We giggle like children at the thought of “pudding wine” or “spotted dick,” and swoon as we spoon up mouthfuls of sticky toffee pud drenched in pools of warm custard sauce.

Unlike the North American term “dessert,” the very British term “pudding” – for both a steamed or baked cake and the general sweet to end a meal – just has a cheery ring to it.

So we are keen to visit The Pudding Club at Three Ways House Hotel in Mickleton in the bucolic Cotswolds. Like the lush fields and dappled woods, carpeted in bluebells and crossed with public walking paths, it’s just such a perfectly British holiday.

And quirky, too. Where else in the world do you find a club dedicated to the weekly consumption of seven old-fashioned puddings, after a special light dinner designed for the very purpose of wallowing in gut-busting, custard-slathered sweets?

Pudding Club meetings have been going on at this small hotel, every Friday night, for more than 20 years, ever since someone in the village devised the event in a fit of nostalgia for their favourite childhood puds. Think of it as a kind of slow food revolt British style, a backlash to the encroachment of “nouvelle cuisine” into the world of hearty English country cooking.

“We inherited the Pudding Club, but there’s always been a heritage of eating pudding in England,” says hotelier Peter Henderson who owns the small circa-1871 hotel with Simon Coombes and has since added “pudding theme” guest rooms to accommodate the visitors who arrive for puddng feasts and a weekend of walking it off in the country. Luckily, the hotel is located near the beginning of the famed Cotswold Way national walking trail, and makes a great base for the walking weekends offered here help balance the caloric equation.

Calories are never mentioned, but it’s likely the bottom line for so much stodgy, sweet, steamed indulgence is staggering. Just consider the classic “syrup sponge” pudding recipe - a mixture of eggs, flour and sugar, steamed in a pudding bowl and doused in Lyle’s syrup and lashings of Bird’s custard. Variations on the theme range from Christmas pudding, studded with mixed dried fruit and jam roly poly, to citrusy marmalade pudding, spotted dick (or “dog” in polite company) with raisins, squidgy chocolate pud, and gooey sticky toffee pudding with dates and caramel sauce.

Henderson says the Christmas plum pudding tradition nearly died out in the 17th century (banned by Puritans as too decadent), but was introduced by King George 1714, unleashing what might be described as a British pudding invasion. Today, any Brit of a certain vintage, or Canadian private school graduate, remembers the pudding as the one bright spot in an otherwise dreadful diet of boarding school food.

“When I was a school boy, we had a meal and a hot pudding at least once a day,” says Henderson as we work our way through several smallish – though seriously filling - servings.

“Pudding was part of our staple diet until convenience foods and desserts like frozen cheesecakes from factories came along.”

It’s not clear why – a reference to the deadly sins? – but every week the Pudding Club serves up seven traditional puddings from it’s repertoire of 113 old-fashioned recipes, and pudding heads arrive from far and wide for a fix.

“A local lady called Sheila Vincent” is the pudding maker, says Henderson, turning out enough of the simple desserts that everyone can have their fill, but there are rules. You must clean up one dessert before adding the next to your pudding bowl. Only after you’ve eaten all seven is it cricket to tuck into seconds.

The chefs parade the puddings through the dining room every 15 minutes, to rowdy whoops and cheers, and at the end of the night there’s a vote for the best of the bunch.

“It’s not a race, it’s a marathon,” says Henderson, spooning slowly and steadily from one pudding to the next, while the rest of us sit uncomfortably stuffed, our bowls still brimming.

It’s definitely a challenge for the uninitiated to consume seven puddings in one go. Even after a light meal of smoked salmon and greens I had difficulty with three scoops of the heavy steamed desserts floating in a sea of Bird’s custard. But serious pudding aficionados attend regularly – the current record is 20 portions of pudding at one sitting, set by a young male diner last June.

And while you don’t have to be a Pudding Club member to attend a meeting, the club has 1,000 members and the weekly events, for up to 70 people, book up early.

The Three Ways House Hotel also has regular guests – and a lovely modern restaurant serving creative cuisine featuring ingredients from local purveyors – but it’s clear that pudding is a big part of their business. Even on non-Pudding Club days, at least three puddings are available on the menu, and Sunday lunch always features a special pudding buffet. There are Summer Pudding dinners, chocolate-themed pudding events, and for Christmas, a Best of British menu, complete with a Boxing Day Pudding Club feast with Bread and Butter pudding, Lord Randalls (apricot and marmalade pudding), and flaming plum pudding.

The hotel has also designed seven whimsical pudding “theme” rooms – individual studies in trompe l’oiel and eccentric visual puns. The classic Syrup Sponge pudding room is awash in golden syrupy satins, with a golden valance dripping over the bed, a vintage Lyle’s golden syrup poster on the wall and a stuffed lion (from the classic label) lounging among the bolsters on the bed. The Summer Pudding room is festooned with strawberry fields and fluffy clouds, with a big berry headboard. And in Spotted Dick/Dog, there are Dalmatians around every custard-yellow corner, and a rendition of the recipe artfully scrawled on the cupboard doors that hide bunk beds for the kids.

“Our mission here is to preserve the heritage of the traditional English pudding,” says Henderson.

By George, I think he’s got it!

OF YOU GO:

Three Ways House and The Pudding Club is located in the village of Mickleton, 90 minutes northeast of London and just 4 km from the historic market town of Chipping Campden, starting point for the Cotswold Way national walking trail (www.nationaltrail.co.uk/Cotswold/)

Three Ways House is located in the centre of Mickleton on the B4632 Stratford to Broadway road. Head west of London on the M4, then follow the M25 to M40 north to Warwick. From Warwick, follow the A3400 south to B4632 and the village of Mickleton.

You don’t need to be a pudding club member to attend the Friday night “meetings” – complete with seven puddings and light dinner for £28 pp. A special two-night Pudding Club Weekend Break, including two places at the Friday night Pudding Club, dinner in the hotel restaurant on Saturday and breakfast is £190 in a standard room).

Regular Cotswold Walking Weekends include a pudding club meeting, followed by two 14-22 km walks, dinner and accommodation starting at £199 pp.

(www.puddingclub.com)

This story appeared in the Globe and Mail newspaper in Sept. 2008

©Cinda Chavich 2008

www.tastereport.com