Spotted dick


Spotted dick is a traditional British pudding, traditionally made with suet and dried fruit and often served with custard. Non-traditional variants include recipes that replace suet with other fats, or that include eggs to make something similar to a sponge pudding or cake.

Etymology

While "spotted" is a clear reference to the dried fruit in the pudding, "dick" and "dog" were dialectal terms widely used for pudding, from the same etymology as "dough". In late 19th century Huddersfield, for instance, a glossary of local terms described: "Dick, plain pudding. If with treacle sauce, treacle dick."

History

The dish is first attested in Alexis Soyer's The modern Housewife or ménagère, published in 1849, in which he described a recipe for "Plum Bolster, or Spotted Dick—Roll out two pounds of paste... have some Smyrna raisins well washed...".
The name "spotted dog" first appeared in 1855, in C.M. Smith's "Working-men's Way in the World" where it was described as a "very marly species of plum-pudding". This name, along with "railway cake", is most common in Ireland where it is made more similar to a soda bread loaf with the addition of currants.
The Pall Mall Gazette reported in 1892 that "the Kilburn Sisters... daily satisfied hundreds of dockers with soup and Spotted Dick".
The name has long been a source of amusement and double entendres, to the point that the catering staff of Flintshire County Council decided in 2009 to rename it to "Spotted Richard" because of all the jokes they were receiving.