"Plum Excitin’ Puddin"    Copyright 2006 Ken Overcast

“Plum puddin’? I guess I heard of it a time or two, but can’t say as ever tasted it…. don’t sound all that good if you ask me,” Dick snorted at his ol’ pardner. “I ain’t all that fond o’ plums, any how.”

“It ain’t even got any plums in it,” Billy chuckled over his reading glasses as he dug through the old cigar box of treasures he’d recently pulled from an old trunk.  “I don’t know why in the dickens they even call it that.

I jus’ remember my Grandma makin’ it when I was a kid…. was awful good, too…. best I remember. ‘Course keepin’ Grandpa out of the brandy was always a challenge.”  “Brandy?? On puddin’?? Never heard o’ such a thing.”

“Yessiree, brandy….. an’ I’ll be doggoned if here ain’t Granny’s ol’ recipe,” Billy grinned, pulling a tattered old paper from the box. “It says right here that she’s gotta age at least six weeks. If we’re gonna get ‘er done by Christmas time, we better get to hoppin’. It’s already the first o’ October.”

That’s the way this little tale began last Fall. The sound of any delicacy that contained booze just had to be good in Dick’s opinion, and it far out weighed any second thoughts about the taste of plums.

“Sounds like a waste o’ good brandy to me, but what the heck…. this IS the season to be jolly.” (The boys had both been on the wagon followin’ that Charlie Russell incident, but that only lasted a couple of weeks.)

The very next day the boys were rattlin’ their old pickup down the gumbo road to town to pick up the makin’s for plum puddin’…. just like Grandma used to make. Armed with her old recipe, they strolled into the grocery store with full intentions of getting all they needed.   They ran into a few minor roadblocks along the way.

First, Granny didn’t have the best handwritin’ in the world, and in the second place some of the ingredients just flat weren’t available in that little one horse store.   The boys were forced to improvise and substitute.  “What in the dickens are sultanas?” Billy inquired of his pal. “I think they’re some kind o’ crackers, ain’t they?”

After a question or two, the grocery store lady had them strung out in the right direction. They were a special kind of raisins…. unfortunately unavailable anywhere on this side of Kansas City.

“Reg’lar raisins oughta work,” Dick grinned. “We can jus’ add a little extr’ brandy to make up the difference.   Treacle was also a little bit of a problem until they figured out that it was just some sort of molasses.  “Reg’lar molasses oughta work with an extr’ glug or two o’ brandy,” the boys agreed.  Suet was substituted by plain old lard, and currents weren’t available either, so grapes would just have to do. They were really a little unsure about what effect the recipe modifications would have, but the fellas were pretty sure that all the changes would probably require a little more of their SPECIAL ingredient.

Before long they were headed back home with all the stuff from the grocery store and ten half-gallon jugs of the best brandy in town. (A fella wants to make sure he has enough just in case a mouse gets into it…... that used to happen to Granny all the time.) Early the next mornin’, right after the chores, they dug out their old tin dishpan and tied into it; trying their best to follow Granny’s directions.

“How much is a smidgen?”   “Heck, I dunno. Besides we’ll need three smidgens if we’re gonna triple the recipe,” Dick answered his pardner, taking a long pull on their new brandy stash.

“Must be ‘bout this much,” he added as he dumped in a half a sack or so of brown sugar. “Looks like she could use a little more brandy to me.”  Glug, glug, glug.

When they got the gooey mess all mixed up, the boys added another couple of bottles of brandy for good measure and then covered the big metal pan with a dishtowel and stowed the concoction on a block behind the old wood cook stove to ferment until Christmas time.   “Dang that stuff looks awful,” Dick chided his friend.  “You sure it’s s’posed to smell like that?  “It’s gonna be great!” was Billy’s reassuring reply.  “Jus’ like when I was a kid. Now dang it, stay out of that brandy… .. we’re gonna need it when it’s time to finish this deal up.”

For the next few weeks, Billy would carefully peak under the dishtowel every morning and add a little extra brandy for good measure. Finally the big day arrived. Christmas was finally here.

“OK, this is it Dick. We jus’ gotta steam ‘er a while today, an’ then pour the rest of the brandy on ‘er an’  light ‘er up.”   With his pardner being so unsophisticated in the finer arts of chef-ery, Billy had to explain that this was indeed the way it was served, as he poured another bottle of brandy over the warming concoction on the stove.

The hour just seemed to race by, and a mere six pack or two later, it was finally time to serve the plumb pudding….. just like Granny used to make. Billy carefully warmed the remaining two gallons of brandy and poured it over the fermented concoction on the stove.

“Now we jush need to let ‘er shoak up a while and then you can light ‘er up,” Billy hiccupped, his mouth watering as the childhood memories filled his rapidly deteriorating brain.   One more six pack and she was all “shoaked up”.   Billy manhandled the dishpan to the middle of their old oak table and Dick scratched a wooden match on the seat of his pants to light the pudding.

Exactly how the kitchen looked at the moment of ignition is mere speculation.  All that is known for sure is that Dick lost his eyebrows and most of his mustache, and there is now a hole out through the roof of the house…. exactly same size as that wad of stuff that used to be in the dishpan. No one has seen the pudding since.

The boys have an orange irrigation tarp nailed on the roof now to keep the snow out. Because there were no records kept, the exact explosive properties of Granny’s plum pudding will probably never be known.   Granny used to say, “If a little will do good a lot ought a do wonders.”  Not always, Granny….. not always.  Keep Smilin’…….   but don’t forget to check yer cinch.