Has anybody really ever had figgy pudding? If so, please fill us in on the whole figgy pudding experience. We (as in me) are dying to know. I have had chestnuts roasting on an open fire, but no figgy pudding. You know that line in the carol: "Now bring us some figgy pudding..." and "We won't go until we get some..." leads me to believe that people either don't mean what they sing -- or a hellava' lot more carolers would be camped out on one's front porch holding out for figgy pudding. Perhaps figgy pudding is far more prevalent than I thought, but in my fifty-some years of being dragged through this depressing forced march of seasonal giddiness, no on has EVER offered me a slice, bowl, cup or plate of figgy pudding.
That said: Could someone please fill me in on the whole just who is "Good King Wenslas", what is "the Feast of Stephen" and did the good king indeed only come to town on that day?
I want to know. I could just Google, but where would the fun be in that?
"Good King Wenceslas" is a popular Christmas carol about a king who goes out to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (the second day of Christmas, December 26). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by the heat miraculously emanating from the king's footprints in the snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935), known in the Czech language as Svatý Václav.
ReplyDeleteRumour has it that the Revolutionary War Patriots threw figgy pudding at the British in battle to protest the tyranny of both English politics and desserts. And (thankfully) figgy pudding became known to generations of Americans only as a line in a stupid Christmas carol rather than as an unappetizing seasonal dessert.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a precursor to fruitcake. Maybe it was filled with alcohol, thus the refusal to go until getting some.
ReplyDeleteYears ago my next-door neighbor, who was from Barbados, used to make fruitcake with her sister every Christmas and I got a loaf. At first I was like, oh, good, fruitcake . . . and then I ate a piece and got a buzz sitting at my kitchen table at 9 a.m. I got addicted to it. I may have become an alcoholic, but I prefer to think of it as being addicted to fruitcake.