Stir-Up Sunday – November 24, 2024

History of Stir-Up Sunday

Any Brit can tell you about the delights of a delicious Christmas pudding at the end of the Advent season! However, the traditional dish hasn’t always looked the same over the years. With various different ingredients and surrounding traditions, the Christmas pudding is the whole point of Stir-Up Sunday and carries an interesting history.

In the 1300s, the first rudimentary Christmas puddings were cooked up. They were originally a porridge called ‘frumenty,’ and were defined by a soupy mixture of beef, mutton, spices, wine, and various dried fruits, like prunes. In anticipation of Advent activities, many people would fast, and frumenty would be their last meal in preparation.

Over the next two hundred years, frumenty morphed into more of a plum pudding. Additions of breadcrumbs, eggs, dried fruit, and spirits added to the flavor and texture of the meal. Later, it became the official meal of Christmas dinners, around 1650. This was short-lived, however, as strict Puritans decided it was an evil meal around 1664. The story ends in 1714, when George I of Germany re-introduced pudding for Christmas, since he enjoyed plum pudding. The Christmas pudding was a staple of the Victorian era.

The history of Stir-Up Sunday has few firm dates, but the tradition solidly stretches back to Victorian times, when families would stir the pudding together, a few weeks before Christmas, making a wish for the new year with each turn of the spoon. However, the holiday’s roots stretch back even further — to 1549. The name of the holiday comes from the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, which begins the collect with, “Stir-up, we beseech thee, O Lord.”

Today, we enjoy Christmas pudding that is most similar to plum pudding, and while Stir-Up Sunday has strong ties to its religious roots, it is often just a festive holiday for families to bake a Christmas meal together!