Betty's Indian Pudding ~ Hasty Pudding

Indian Pudding aka Hasty Pudding ~ This traditional cornmeal dessert, full of the flavors of molasses and spices, has been around forever and has had a place at many a Thanksgiving table over the centuries.

My sister-in-law, Betty, is a retired school teacher and she shared an old recipe with me that she used to make with her students every autumn.  They'd make this dessert in the classroom, using a crockpot.  The recipe is for ~ Indian Pudding (aka Hasty Pudding).  While trying to find out a bit more about this dessert, I found a really interesting website called ~ What's Cooking America.   Lisa Stradley shares the origins of this traditional, sweetened cornmeal mush dessert.  The post is a fun read and a lot of it I'd never heard before, like... Indian Pudding is also known as Hasty Pudding... or, Indian Pudding is a traditional Thanksgiving Day dish in New England households... or, 'National Indian Pudding Day' is on November 13th (oops, missed that by a few days :).  So many little kernels of information (yup, pun intended), it just keeps going on and on...  :)

Above ^ is a copy of Betty's original recipe, the one that I used to make this dish.  The 'pudding' turns out sorta like a thick cream of wheat and has a wonderful flavor.  The molasses and spices give it a really nice, rich taste.  I tried mine with both milk and ice cream, (yeah, I had two bowlfuls).  Thanks for sharing this recipe, Betty.  I guess you're never too old to learn new things in the kitchen... especially when you've got a teacher in the family who cooks!