For anyone British, this is a rather unusual day to be celebrating the plum pudding, also known as the Christmas pudding, for the dessert is traditionally served on Christmas Day, not partway through February.
The pudding is a boiled pudding containing dried fruit. It is made from dried fruits, egg, suet and various spices, and typically has a high percentage of alcohol. Plum puddings are usually made well in advance of use, at least a month, and they can keep for a long time due to the alcohol acting as a preservative.
There are different recipes for plum pudding but there is one thing they have in common - the recipe does not use plums! This was due to the Victorians calling raisins "plums." The dish dates back to the 17th century at least, and the ingredients that made it up, in particular the spices, would then have been very expensive, thus Christmas would have been the time to have such an extravagant dessert.
Once cooked, there are different ways of serving the pudding. Some traditional ways are flambé, where brandy is poured over the pudding and ignited, or with cream or brandy butter. These all tended to be expensive ways of serving.
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