HASTY PUDDING FRIED

Hasty pudding
Fat or oil for frying

Cut cold pudding in slices the thickness of your finger, and lay them on the griddle. More fat will be necessary than for buckwheat cakes, but it fries much slower. If the fire is right it will be ready to turn in fifteen minutes, and will be brown. Turn it and let it lie about half as long as on the first side.
This is a very good breakfast for a winter morning. It does very nicely to be laid in the dripping-pan, and set into a stove oven; it will in that case not need turning, and of course will absorb less fat. It will take forty minutes to brown it in the stove.

From The Young Housekeeper's Friend by Mrs. [M. H.] Cornelius, Boston, 1863

Comment: Hasty pudding is more famous for its name than its qualifications as an exciting breakfast dish, as it is little more than dressed-up cornmeal mush. Breakfast was a very substantial meal in our ancestors' time, particularly for those in rural settings. People rose, dressed, and then started building up the fires for both heating and cooking. While those progressed one went out to gather eggs, chickens, items from the smokehouse, or whatever else was on the breakfast menu, while the other partner milked the cows. The items gathered then had to be prepared (killed, cleaned and cut up in the case of chickens) and cooked. All of this, particularly in the winter, took place while it was still pitch dark outside. By the time everyone sat down to eat the first meal of the day they had probably been working for several hours already, and were yet to start the heavy labor of the day. A good slab of fat-laden reheated mush was not an indulgence but a necessity.

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