Taste of History is a limited-run blog series exploring some of the old-school recipes found in archival collections. This time we’re trying Mexican Pudding, a vegetarian main dish.
Growing up, I didn’t have access to the wide variety of produce I enjoy eating today. The first time I had fresh pineapple and mushrooms instead of the tinned version I was well into my teens, and it was around the same time that I was introduced to sweet potatoes as well. For that reason, I was intrigued when I saw the recipe for Mexican Pudding in a copy of Culinary Secrets, produced by the Familex Products Company in the mid to late 1930s. It incorporates both mushrooms and sweet potatoes, and I couldn’t help wondering whether certain types of produce might have been somewhat rare in Grande Prairie at that time. The name suggests that the recipe developer might have considered it rather an exotic dish.
I put the sweet potatoes on to boil while I sauteed up the other vegetables for the filling. The recipe called for olives, but as I was cooking for my mom, who doesn’t care for olives, I decided to leave them out. Once the vegetables had softened up, I added in a lightly beaten egg, salt and pepper, and some grated cheese. I selected a Monterey Jack with chili peppers as I thought the heat would add a little interest to otherwise mild flavors, and because it seemed appropriate to a dish called Mexican Pudding.
The hardest part of preparing the dish was peeling and slicing still-hot sweet potatoes. Assembling the layers – a layer of sweet potatoes for the bottom “crust,” followed by the filling, and topping it off with the remaining sweet potatoes – was easy but still produced an attractive, colorful dish. The instruction to “cook in moderate oven” reminded me of some recipes my mom and grandmas have shared with me: a list of ingredients with instructions to “mix and bake until done.”
Mexican Pudding turned out to be a tasty weeknight dinner (and a satisfying lunch of leftovers the next day). I think the spicy cheese was a good choice, and if I were to make it again, I’d like to try with the olives as I think the additional saltiness would be welcome.
Keep your eyes open for next month’s post, where we try a new twist on a comfort food classic with a misleading name.
