No Matter a Peacock or Partridge it is still in a Pear Tree 

No matter if you love it or hate it, the “12 Days of Christmas” song is a holiday staple. Sure, you might prefer belting out other beloved Christmas carols like “Feliz Navidad” or Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” but there’s something about singing the “12 Days of Christmas” each year that makes you feel a little nostalgic. Even if you don’t know all the words, you’re likely able to remember an occasional verse like “Nine ladies dancing!” or “A partridge in a pear tree!” But do you know the “12 Days of Christmas” song meaning and the hidden-message theory about the lyrics?

Not much of the song makes much sense in the modern age, but knowing the rich history behind the elaborate song (which ends up totaling 364 gifts, by the way) puts the seemingly odd lyrics in context. Let’s dive in!

What are the 12 days of Christmas?

The “12 Days of Christmas” referenced in the carol reference the 12 days following Christmas, also known as Twelvetide in Christianity. The period begins with the birth of Christ on December 25th and ends with the coming of the Three Wise Men on January 6th, also known as the Epiphany or Three Kings Day. The weeks before Christmas are known as Advent — hence, the creation of advent calendars.

Where do the “12 Days of Christmas” lyrics come from?

Though some scholars believe that the song is French in origin, the first printed appearance of the song was in the English children’s book Mirth With-out Mischief. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s probably because it was published in 1780. You could ask the person who shelled out $23,750 at a Sotheby’s auction for a first edition to borrow their copy. But even so, you may not recognize the lyrics.

In the original lyrics, the “four calling birds” were actually “four colly birds.” The term “colly” is old English slang for blackbirds. In other old versions of the song, the partridge we all know and love is replaced with a “very pretty peacock upon a pear tree.” There’s also a Scottish version that gifts “an Arabian baboon.” It wasn’t until 1909 that British composer Frederic Austin penned the version of the lyrics that we are all familiar with today.

Most historians believe that the Christmas carol started out as a “memory-and-forfeit” game in 1800s England. These types of games were played by British school children and the rules were simple: When it’s your turn, you repeat all the previously sung lyrics and add the next one. If you can’t remember a verse, you owe your opponent a “forfeit,” which was usually a kiss or a piece of candy.

Is there a hidden meaning behind the “12 Days of Christmas” song?

There’s a theory floating around claiming that during a time when Christians were punished for worshiping openly, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song was used to secretly pass on the ideology of Christianity. Per this theory, each gift on the list symbolizes a different aspect of the Christian faith:

The Partridge in the Pear Tree is Jesus Christ.

The 2 Turtle Doves are The Old and New Testaments.

The 3 French hens are Faith, Hope and Charity, the theological virtues.

The 4 Calling Birds are the four gospels and/or the four evangelists.

The 5 Golden Rings are the first five books of the Old Testament.

The 6 Geese A-laying are the six days of creation.

The 7 Swans A-swimming are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments.

The 8 Maids A-milking are the eight beatitudes.

The 9 Ladies Dancing are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.

The 10 Lords A-leaping are the ten commandments.

The 11 Pipers Piping are the eleven faithful apostles.

The 12 Drummers Drumming are the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed.

But while it is true that the “12 days” reference the days between the birth of Christ and the coming of the Magi, Snopes breaks down the many historical and logistical errors in the “hidden meanings” theory, including the biggest flaw in the claim: If Christians were living in fear of even mentioning the basic tenants of Christianity, how were they able to sing a song that mentions the word “Christmas” in every lyric?

So there you have it! Here’s a fun fact about the “12 Days of Christmas” tune we bet you didn’t know. Since 1984, PNC Bank has been tracking the price of giving each gift mentioned in the song with the PNC Christmas Price Index. The index uses current market rates to calculate how much each gift would cost, on average, for the modern consumer. We hate to break it to you, but giving someone every gift mentioned in the song would cost you a small fortune — around $41,205.58, according to the current Christmas price index. Partly, this is because swans are really expensive ($1,875 each!). But the real reason the final number is so eye-popping is that the gifts are cumulative — you give each previous gift mention with each subsequent gift, which brings your total number of gifts to 364.

I am all for 364 Gifts….that is only one day a year would have no gifts.  I just love the new math! 

Spooky, Creepy, Morbid, Yes Christmas Cards! 

Some of the Earliest Christmas Cards Were Morbid and Creepy. Santa kidnapping children and murderous mice were par for the course in the Victorian-era Christmas card tradition.

In the 19th century, before festive Christmas cards became the norm, Victorians put a darkly humorous and twisted spin on their seasonal greetings. Some of the more popular subjects included anthropomorphic frogs, bloodthirsty snowmen and dead birds.

“May yours be a joyful Christmas,” reads one card from the late 1800s, along with an illustration of a dead robin. Another card shows an elderly couple laughing maniacally as they lean out a second-story window and dump water onto a group of carolers below. “Wishing you a jolly Christmas,” it says beneath the image.

Morality and a strict code of social conduct embodied the time period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901), but the Victorians still had their fair share of questionable practices. They thought nothing of posing with the dead or robbing graves and selling the bodies. Their holiday customs evolved with just as much curiosity. Clowns, insects and even the Devil himself had a place in early holiday fanfare.

“In the 19th century, the iconography of Christmas had not been fully developed as it is now,” says Penne Restad, a lecturer in American history at the University of Texas in Austin and the author of Christmas in America.

The first Christmas card, circa 1843.

Christmas didn’t gain momentum until the mid-1800s. In 1843, the same year that English author Charles Dickens created A Christmas Carol, prominent English educator and society member, Sir Henry Cole, commissioned the first Christmas card. Even with an impressive print run of 1,000 cards (of which 21 exist today), full-fledged manufacturing remained only a sideline to the more established trade in playing cards, notepaper and envelopes, needle-box and linen labels and valentines, explains Samantha Bradbeer, archivist and historian for Hallmark Cards, Inc. It took several decades for the exchange of holiday greetings to catch on, both in England and the United States.

“Several factors coincided to produce a broad acceptance of greeting cards as a popular commodity,” says Bradbeer, including a higher literacy rate and new consumerism stemming from increasing levels of discretionary income. But postal reform and advances in printing technologies were the two factors that really pushed Christmas cards into the mainstream.

The Postage Act of 1839 helped regulate British postage rates and democratize mail delivery. A year later, with the passage of the Uniform Penny Post law, anyone in England could send something in the mail for just one penny. Then, in October 1870, right before the holiday season, the British government introduced the halfpenny, making mail service affordable for nearly all levels of society. Standardized rates and delivery soon followed in America.

At the same time, wood cuts and other cumbersome printing processes gave way to the mass production of images. The first mass printing of Christmas cards occurred in the 1860s. By 1870, when printing could be done for as little as a few pennies per dozen, hundreds of European card manufacturers were producing cards to sell at home and to the American public. German immigrant Louis Prang is credited with popularizing the Christmas card in the United States through his Boston lithography business.

As the popularity of Christmas cards grew, Victorians demanded more novelty. “By 1885, unique and even bizarre cards with silk fringe, glittered attachments and mechanical movements were popular, but the more common Christmas card motifs related to flora and fauna, seasonal vignettes and landscapes,”.

Among the bizarre were a large collection of dark and outlandish designs. An army of black ants is shown attacking an army of red ants on one holiday greeting with the caption, “The compliments of the season,” printed on a tiny flag. Sullen and brooding children, random lobsters and Christmas pudding with human elements made frequent appearances on Christmas cards printed in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

But why did Victorians exchange such eccentric holiday cards, and what do they mean?

“I think it’s important to understand that ‘festive’ cards as we know them now are very much a 20th-century phenomena,” says Katie Brown, assistant curator of social history at York Castle Museum. According to Brown, although some of the history is lost, designs were made to serve as conversation pieces as much as they were made to celebrate the season. Many Victorian Christmas cards became parlor art or people added them to their scrapbook collections.

Greeting cards, in general, are linked socially, economically and politically to the culture, period and place of their origin and use. “Sentiments and designs that may seem unusual today were often considered signs of good fortune, while others poked fun at superstitions,” .

Folk customs influenced the design of many Victorian Christmas cards. In British folklore, for example, robins and wrens are considered sacred species. John Grossman, author of Christmas Curiosities: Old, Dark and Forgotten Christmas, writes that images of these dead birds on Christmas cards may have been “bound to elicit Victorian sympathy and may reference common stories of poor children freezing to death at Christmas.”

“I believe the cultural interest in fairies, secret places and strange creatures that developed, maybe beginning with seances, elves and so on, in the Victorian era may have something to do with some of the fantastical Christmas cards,” says historians .

St. Nicholas Teams Up With the Devil

A German postcard reading “Gruss vom Krampus,” meaning “Greetings from Krampus.”

An English legend popular during the Victorian era said that St. Nicholas recruited the Devil to help with his deliveries. Together, they determined which children had been naughty or nice. The Devil, who appeared under various guises, kidnapped the disobedient kids and beat them with a stick. Santa is the creepy antihero on a variety of Victorian-era holiday cards, where he can be seen peeking through windows and spying on children. The Devil is disguised as Krampus on some, making off on sleds and in automobiles with the children deemed naughty.

Today, despite the rise of electronic communication and social media, billions of Christmas cards are bought and exchanged around the world each year. 

“As artifacts of popular culture revealing graphic, literary and social trends, they provide both visual pleasure and important historic information,” says historians, even when that information is symbolized by dead birds. 

History of the card

A prominent educator and patron of the arts, Henry Cole travelled in the elite, social circles of early Victorian England, and had the misfortune of having too many friends.

During the holiday season of 1843, those friends were causing Cole much anxiety.

The problem were their letters: An old custom in England, the Christmas and New Year’s letter had received a new impetus with the recent expansion of the British postal system and the introduction of the “Penny Post,” allowing the sender to send a letter or card anywhere in the country by affixing a penny stamp to the correspondence.

Now, everybody was sending letters. Sir Cole—best remembered today as the founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London—was an enthusiastic supporter of the new postal system, and he enjoyed being the 1840s equivalent of an A-Lister, but he was a busy man. As he watched the stacks of unanswered correspondence he fretted over what to do. “In Victorian England, it was considered impolite not to answer mail,”. “He had to figure out a way to respond to all of these people.”

Cole hit on an ingenious idea. He approached an artist friend, J.C. Horsley, and asked him to design an idea that Cole had sketched out in his mind. Cole then took Horsley’s illustration—a triptych showing a family at table celebrating the holiday flanked by images of people helping the poor—and had a thousand copies made by a London printer. The image was printed on a piece of stiff cardboard 5 1/8 x 3 1/4 inches in size. At the top of each was the salutation, “TO:_____” allowing Cole to personalize his responses, which included the generic greeting “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year To You.”

Bingo, It was the first Christmas card.

Unlike many holiday traditions—can anyone really say who sent the first Christmas fruitcake?—we have a generally agreed upon name and date for the beginning of this one. But as with today’s brouhahas about Starbucks cups or “Happy Holidays” greetings, it was not without controversy. In their image of the family celebrating, Cole and Horsley had included several young children enjoying what appear to be glasses of wine along with their older siblings and parents. “At the time there was a big temperance movement in England,” Collins says. “So there were some that thought he was encouraging underage drinking.”

The criticism was not enough to blunt what some in Cole’s circle immediately recognized as a good way to save time. Within a few years, several other prominent Victorians had simply copied his and Horsley’s creation and were sending them out at Christmas.

While Cole and Horsley get the credit for the first, it took several decades for the Christmas card to really catch on, both in Great Britain and the United States. Once it did, it became an integral part of our holiday celebrations—even as the definition of “the holidays” became more expansive, and now includes not just Christmas and New Year’s, but Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and the Winter Solstice.

Louis Prang, a Prussian immigrant with a print shop near Boston, is credited with creating the first Christmas card originating in the United States in 1875. It was very different from Cole and Horsley’s of 30 years prior, in that it didn’t even contain a Christmas or holiday image. The card was a painting of a flower, and it read “Merry Christmas.” This more artistic, subtle approach would categorize this first generation of American Christmas cards.  “They were vivid, beautiful reproductions,” says Collins. “There were very few nativity scenes or depictions of holiday celebrations. You were typically looking at animals, nature, scenes that could have taken place in October or February.”

Appreciation of the quality and the artistry of the cards grew in the late 1800s, spurred in part by competitions organized by card publishers, with cash prizes offered for the best designs. People soon collected Christmas cards like they would butterflies or coins, and the new crop each season were reviewed in newspapers, like books or films today.

In 1894, prominent British arts writer Gleeson White devoted an entire issue of his influential magazine, The Studio, to a study of Christmas cards. While he found the varied designs interesting, he was not impressed by the written sentiments. “It’s obvious that for the sake of their literature no collection would be worth making,” he sniffed. (White’s comments are included as part of an online exhibit of Victorian Christmas cards from Indiana University’s Lilly Library)

“In the manufacture of Victorian Christmas cards,” wrote George Buday in his 1968 book, The History of the Christmas Card, “we witness the emergence of a form of popular art, accommodated to the transitory conditions of society and its production methods.”

The modern Christmas card industry arguably began in 1915, when a Kansas City-based fledgling postcard printing company started by Joyce Hall, later to be joined by his brothers Rollie and William, published its first holiday card. The Hall Brothers company (which, a decade later, change its name to Hallmark), soon adapted a new format for the cards—4 inches wide, 6 inches high, folded once, and inserted in an envelope.  

“They discovered that people didn’t have enough room to write everything they wanted to say on a post card,” says Steve Doyal, vice president of public affairs for Hallmark, “but they didn’t want to write a whole letter.”

In this new “book” format—which remains the industry standard—colorful Christmas cards with red-suited Santas and brilliant stars of Bethlehem, and cheerful, if soon clichéd, messages inside, became enormously popular in the 1930s-1950s. As hunger for cards grew, Hallmark and its competitors reached out for new ideas to sell them. Commissioning famous artists to design them was one way: Hence, the creation of cards by Salvador Dali, Grandma Moses and Norman Rockwell, who designed a series of Christmas cards for Hallmark (the Rockwell cards are still reprinted every few years). (The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art has a fascinating collection of more personal Christmas cards sent by artists including Alexander Calder.) 

Jacqueline Kennedy painted two Christmas card designs for Hallmark in 1963. The designs, including Glad Tidings (featured) and the Journey of the Magi, were to be sold as a benefit for the Kennedy Center. Courtesy of the Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.

Between 1948 and 1957, Norman Rockwell created 32 Christmas card designs, including Santa Looking at Two Sleeping Children (1952) for Hallmark. Courtesy of the Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.

The most popular Christmas card of all time, however, is a simple one. It’s an image of three cherubic angels, two of whom are bowed in prayer. The third peers out from the card with big, baby blue eyes, her halo slightly askew.

“God bless you, keep you and love you…at Christmastime and always,” reads the sentiment. First published in 1977, that card—still part of Hallmark’s collection—has sold 34 million copies.

The introduction, 53 years ago, of the first Christmas stamp by the U.S. Post Office perhaps speaks even more powerfully to the popularity of the Christmas card. It depicted a wreath, two candles and had the words “Christmas, 1962.” According to the Post Office, the department ordered the printing of 350 million of these 4-cent, green and white stamps. However, says Daniel Piazza, chief curator of philately for the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, “they underestimated the demand and ended up having to do a special printing.”

But there was a problem.

“They didn’t have enough of the right size paper,” Piazza says. Hence, the first printing of the new Christmas stamps came in sheets of 100. The second printing was in sheets of 90. (Although they are not rare, Piazza adds, the second printing-sheets of these stamps are collectibles today).

Still, thanks to the round the clock efforts by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a total of one billion copies of the 1962 Christmas stamp were printed and distributed by the end of the year.

Today, much of the innovation in Christmas cards is found in smaller, niche publishers whose work is found in gift shops and paper stores. “These smaller publishers are bringing in a lot of new ideas,” says Peter Doherty, executive director of the Greeting Card Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group representing the card publishers. “You have elaborate pop up cards, video cards, audio cards, cards segmented to various audiences.”

The sentiments, too, are different than the stock greetings of the past. “It’s not always the touchy-feely, ‘to you and yours on this festive, glorious occasion’ kind of prose,” says Doherty. “Those cards are still out there, but the newer publishers are writing in a language that is speaking to a younger generation.”

Henry Cole’s first card was a convenient way for him to speak to his many friends and associates without having to draft long, personalized responses to each. Yet, there are also accounts of Cole selling at least some of the cards for a shilling apiece at his art gallery in London, possibly for charity. Maybe Sir Cole was not only a pioneer of the Christmas card, but prescient in his recognition of another aspect of our celebration of Christmas.

Plum Pudding: By Any Other Name and Holiday 

Plum Pudding is often associated with Christmas thanks to Charles Dickens, but it is served at Thanksgiving as well and special occasions. Call it what you may it is delicious! 

Christmas pudding is sweet dried-fruit pudding traditionally served as part of Christmas dinner in Britain and other countries to which the tradition has been exported. It has its origins in medieval England, with early recipes making use of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, flour, eggs and spice, along with liquid such as milk or fortified wine. Later, recipes became more elaborate. In 1845, cookery writer Eliza Acton wrote the first recipe for what she called “Christmas pudding”.

The dish is sometimes known as plum pudding (though this can also refer to other kinds of boiled pudding involving dried fruit). The word “plum” had been used for what we would now call “raisin” since the 18th century, and the pudding does not in fact contain plums.

The Basics

 Many households have their own recipes for Christmas pudding, some handed down through families for generations. Essentially the recipe brings together what traditionally were expensive or luxurious ingredients — notably the sweet spices that are so important in developing its distinctive rich aroma, and usually made with suet. It is very dark, almost black in appearance due to the dark sugars and black treacle in most recipes, and it’s long cooking time. The mixture can be moistened with the juice of citrus fruits, brandy and other alcohol (some recipes call for dark beers such as mild, stout or porter).

Christmas puddings are often dried out on hooks for weeks prior to serving in order to enhance the flavor. This pudding has been prepared with a traditional cloth rather than a basin.

Prior to the 19th century, the English Christmas pudding was boiled in a pudding cloth, and often represented as round. The Victorian era fashion involved putting the batter into a basin and then steaming it, followed by unwrapping the pudding, placing it on a platter, and decorating the top with a sprig of holly.

Initial cooking usually involves steaming for many hours. Most pre-twentieth century recipes assume that the pudding will then be served immediately, but in the second half of the twentieth century, it became more usual to reheat puddings on the day of serving, and recipes changed slightly to allow for maturing. To serve, the pudding is reheated by steaming once more, and dressed with warm brandy which is set alight. It can be eaten with hard sauce (usually brandy butter or rum butter), cream, lemon cream, ice cream, custard, or sweetened béchamel, and is sometimes sprinkled with caster sugar.

An example of a Great Depression era recipe for Christmas pudding can instead be made on Christmas Day rather than weeks before as with a traditional plum pudding, although it is still boiled or steamed. Given the scarce resources available to poorer households during the depression, this recipe uses cold tea for flavoring instead of brandy and there are no eggs used in the mixture. This recipe is not as heavy as a traditional plum pudding.

Legends

There is a popular myth that plum pudding’s association with Christmas goes back to a custom in medieval England that the “pudding should be made on the 25th Sunday after Trinity, that it be prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and the 12 apostles, and that every family member stir it in turn from east to west to honor the Magi and their journey in that direction”. However, recipes for plum puddings appear mainly, if not entirely, in the 17th century and later. One of the earliest plum pudding recipes is given by Mary Kettilby in her 1714 book A Collection of above Three Hundred Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery. There is a popular and wholly unsubstantiated myth that in 1714, George I of Great Britain (sometimes known as the Pudding King) requested that plum pudding be served as part of his royal feast in his first Christmas in England.

Ancestors

Christmas pudding’s possible ancestors include savoury puddings such as those in Harleian MS 279, croustades, malaches whyte, creme boiled (a kind of stirred custard), and sippets. Various ingredients and methods of these older recipes appear in early plum puddings. An early example of a bag pudding (without fruit) is “fraunche mele” in the Liber Cure Cocorum. Pudding “had the great merit” of not needing to be cooked in an oven, something “most lower class households did not have”. Pudding predecessors often contained meat, as well as sweet ingredients, and prior to being steamed in a cloth the ingredients may have been stuffed into the gut or stomach of an animal, like haggis or sausages.

As techniques for meat preserving improved in the 18th century, the savoury element of both the mince pie and the plum pottage diminished as the sweet content increased. People began adding dried fruit and sugar. The mince pie kept its name, though the pottage was increasingly referred to as plum pudding. As plum pudding, it became widespread as a feast dish, not necessarily associated with Christmas, and usually served with beef. It makes numerous appearances in 18th century satire as a symbol of Britishness, including the Gilray cartoon, The Plumb-pudding in danger.

Victorian era

It was not until the 1830s that a boiled cake of flour, fruits, suet, sugar and spices, all topped with holly, made a definite appearance, becoming more and more associated with Christmas. The East Sussex cook Eliza Acton was the first to refer to it as “Christmas Pudding” in her bestselling 1845 book Modern Cookery for Private Families.

It was in the late Victorian era that the ‘Stir up Sunday’ myth began to take hold. The collect for the Sunday before Advent in the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer begins with the words “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works…”. This led to the custom of preparing Christmas puddings on that day which became known as Stir-up Sunday, associated with the stirring of the Christmas pudding.

British Empire

The custom of eating Christmas pudding was carried to many parts of the world by British colonists.[citation needed] It is a common dish in the Republic of Ireland[citation needed], Australia, New Zealand[citation needed], Canada and South Africa[citation needed] Throughout the colonial period, the pudding was a symbol of unity throughout the British Empire.

In 1927, the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) wrote a letter to the Master of the Royal Household, requesting a copy of the recipe used to make the Christmas pudding for the royal family. The King and Queen granted Leo Amery, the head of the EMB, permission to use the recipe in a publication in the following November. The royal chef, Henry Cédard, provided the recipe. In order to distribute the recipe, the EMB had to overcome two challenges: size and ingredients. First, the original recipe was measured to serve 40 people, including the entire royal family and their guests. The EMB was challenged to rework the recipe to serve only 8 people. Second, the ingredients used to make the pudding had to be changed to reflect the ideals of the Empire. The origins of each ingredient had to be carefully manipulated to represent each of the Empire’s many colonies. Brandy from Cyprus and nutmeg from the West Indies, which had been inadvertently forgotten in previous recipes, made special appearances. However, there were a number of colonies that produced the same foodstuffs. The final recipe included Australian currants, South African stoned raisins, Canadian apples, Jamaican rum and English Beer, among other ingredients all sourced from somewhere in the Empire. After finalizing the ingredients, the royal recipe was sent out to national newspapers and to popular women’s magazines. Copies were also printed and handed out to the public for free. The recipe was a phenomenal success, as thousands of requests for the recipe flooded the EMB office.

In 1931, an annual Christmas Market of the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals was held at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 & 25 November. A 10-ton Christmas pudding, the largest ever created up until that time, was featured. The recipe became known as the “Prince of Wales’ Empire Christmas Pudding”. The Times newspaper noted “The Lord Mayor of London has promised to give the pudding its first ‘stir’. He will be followed by the High Commissioners of the Dominions, and afterwards the general public will have the chance of stirring it”. The Prince of Wales (Edward VIII) was then a patron of the PDSA charity. It was then divided up into 11,208 smaller puddings, which were distributed amongst the poor throughout the country. Both Manchester and Salford, for example, received 512 each.

United States

In America, the traditions of the Christmas pudding had already arrived in pre-independence days. A book entitled The Williamsburg Art of Cookery by Helen Bullock was published in the U.S. as early as 1742. Among the ingredients she includes a pound of each of a variety of dried fruits and sugar, plus half a pound each of candied peel (citron, orange and lemon). She also adds one pint of brandy and 12 eggs.

Jane Cunningham Croly published a 19th-century recipe for plum pudding contributed to Jennie June’s American Cookery Book by the American poet sisters Alice Cary and Phoebe Cary. It was made as bread pudding, by soaking stale bread in milk then adding suet, candied citron, nutmeg, eggs, raisins and brandy. It was a moulded dessert, cooked in boiling water for several hours, and served with a sweet wine sauce.

Wishing and other traditions

In the late Victorian period a tradition grew up that Christmas puddings should be made on or immediately after the Sunday “next before Advent”, i.e. four to five weeks before Christmas. The collect for that Sunday in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, as it was used from the 16th century (and still is in traditional churches), reads:

“Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Initially probably a schoolchild joke, latterly the day became known as “Stir-up Sunday”. By the 1920s the custom was established that everyone in the household, or at least every child (and sometimes the servants), gave the mixture a stir and made a wish while doing so.

It was common practice to include small silver coins in the pudding mixture, which could be kept by the person whose serving included them. The usual choice was a silver threepence or a sixpence. The coin was believed to bring wealth in the coming year, and came from an earlier tradition, defunct by the twentieth century, wherein tokens were put in a cake (see Twelfth Cake).

Other tokens are also known to have been included, such as a tiny wishbone (to bring good luck), a silver thimble (for thrift) or an anchor (to symbolise safe harbour).

Once turned out of its basin, decorated with holly, doused in brandy (or occasionally rum), and flamed (or “fired”), the pudding is traditionally brought to the table ceremoniously, and greeted with a round of applause. In 1843, Charles Dickens describes the scene in A Christmas Carol:

“Mrs Cratchit left the room alone – too nervous to bear witnesses – to take the pudding up and bring it in… Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper which smells like a washing-day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry cook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered – flushed, but smiling proudly – with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quarter of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.”

Pudding Recipes associated with Thanksgiving/Christmas

Thanksgiving Pudding – also called Cracker Pudding

This recipe comes from Out of Vermont Kitchens (1973, St. Paul’s Cathedral Edition, page 239) and is similar to the Boston Cooking School Cook Book recipe. It is similar to bread pudding which has a custard base but it is made with crackers.

Grandmother’s Thanksgiving Pudding

9 Montpelier crackers (rolled fine) (or soda crackers rolled to make 2 cups)

1 quart (4 cups) milk

½ cup molasses

4 Tablespoons butter

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ lb. seeded raisins

1/8 lb. citron, cut fine (optional)

3 eggs

1/8 teaspoon soda

Mix all ingredients except eggs, soda & butter in a large saucepan.

Cook over low heat until mixture thickens & raisins will not settle.

Remove from stove, add butter, beaten eggs, and soda.

Stir well and pour into a greased casserole dish.

Bake in a slow oven about 2 hours

Serve warm with hard sauce

This pudding keeps well & may be reheated

Serves 8 – 10

From: Bertha Little Larabee

Plum Pudding was not just a Christmas Tradition

“…without roasted turkey and plum-pudding, there could be no orthodox thanksgiving dinner.”  (The Boston Book: Being Specimens of Metropolitan Literature, Occasional and Periodical (1836) edited by Henry Theodore Tuckerman)

Christmas Plum Pudding was served at Mrs. Winship’s extravagant Thanksgiving Dinner. Christmas or English Plum Pudding is a fancy version of ordinary suet pudding. The Boston Cooking School Cook Book listed a plum style pudding over the years as Thanksgiving Pudding II (1912 – 1926) – Thanksgiving Steamed Pudding (1933 – 1959) – Thanksgiving Pudding (1965). They are all the same recipe.

½ lb. stale bread crumbs             2 oz. citron, chopped fine

1 cup milk, scalded                    ½ lb. suet, chopped fine

½ cup sugar                              ¼ cup wine, currant jelly, or grape juice

4 eggs                                       ½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ lb. raisins, chopped & floured   ¾ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ lb. currants                             ¼ teaspoon clove

¼ lb. figs, chopped fine               ¼ teaspoon mace

                                                 ½ teaspoon salt

Soak bread crumbs in milk, let stand until cool, add sugar, beaten yolks of eggs, raisins, currants, figs, and citron; add suet, mix together, add wine, currant jelly or grape juice, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, mace. Beat egg whites stiff and fold into mixture. Place in deep baking dish, cover with foil, place dish on a rack in the cooking pot, add water up to one inch of dish, and steam for six hours. Replace water with boiling water when needed.

Genuine English Plum Pudding

2 lbs. raisins                       2 lbs. flour

1 lb. currants                     6 eggs

1 lb. sultanas                     1 qt. milk

1 lb. mixed peel (lemon,     ½ glass brandy

         orange and citron)      8 tsp. baking powder

2 lbs. beef suet                   2 tsp. ground nutmeg

2 lbs. bread crumbs            1 tsp. cinnamon

2 lbs. sugar                       1 tsp. allspice

Clean the raisins, currants and sultanas, and dry thoroughly. Chop the suet very fine. It is a good plan to use the meat chopper for this, sprinkling a little flour in it to prevent sticking. For the bread crumbs use only the soft inside part of a stale loaf and grate fine. Slice the peel very fine. When these ingredients are ready, put together in a large mixing bowl, with the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, flour and baking powder. Mix well. Beat the eggs, and add to them the milk and brandy. Pour this slowly into the fruit mixture and mix thoroughly. It is better to use the hands for this. Grease several china bowls, holding about 1½ pts. each, and fill with the mixture, using a wooden spoon, and pressing down to fill evenly. Fill each bowl a little more than level. Cover each pudding with a piece of oiled paper. Tie a cloth over each one with a strong, white string, tying about ½ down the bowl, so that the cloth will not come off when the pudding begins to cook. Lap the four corners of the cloth up over the top of the bowl and tie in a couple of knots, so that the pudding can be lifted out easily when cooked. Get the puddings all read the day before they are to be cooked. Put enough water in a large cooking utensil to cover the puddings. When it comes to a boil, drop the pudding in carefully running a toasting-fork under the knots of the cloth. Boil slowly for 10 hours. Add boiling water from time to time as needed. When done, lift the puddings out with the fork, remove the clothes, and carefully wash and dry them [clothes]. Put the puddings on the range shelf or some warm place, and let them stand for several days or until well dried out, for if they are not properly dried they will mould. When dry, tie clothes on again. Then put the puddings in a dry place and they will keep for months. In England we make them in the Fall, and use them throughout the winter. When needed, steam or drop into a kettle of boiling water for one hour. Serve with brandy sauce or cream. Or place a sprig of holly in the top; pour brandy around the pudding and set fire to the brandy. This recipe will make from 8 to 10 puddings.

Thanksgiving: Thomas Jefferson Secret Holiday 

Thomas Jefferson’s had a very Complicated Relationship with Thanksgiving. The third president declined to participate in the tradition. Since the United States became a nation, people have come together to count their blessings, feast on bountiful foods and give thanks with family and friends. These days, Thanksgiving celebrations usually involve turkey, pie and a food coma; in the past, they involved fasting, prayer gatherings and solemn religious ceremonies.

But there’s one president who refused to endorse the tradition: Thomas Jefferson.

Ever since Jefferson first declined to mark the day in 1801, rumors have swirled that the third president despised the event. But it was more complicated than that. For Jefferson, supporting Thanksgiving meant supporting state-sponsored religion, and it was his aversion to mixing church and state that earned him a reputation as America’s only anti-Thanksgiving president.

In Jefferson’s time, Thanksgiving as a national holiday didn’t exist at all. The formal observance of Thanksgiving Day only began in 1863, when Lincoln proclaimed the holiday in response to the horrors of the Civil War. By then, the tradition of giving thanks as a nation had been in place since 1777, when Congress declared a national day of thanksgiving after America’s victory at the Battle of Saratoga. Afterward, presidents would proclaim periodic days of fasting, prayer and expressing gratitude.

But not Jefferson. When he became president, he stopped declaring the holidays that George Washington and John Adams had so enthusiastically supported—and in 1802, he flirted with telling the nation why.

Shortly after his inauguration, a Baptist group in Connecticut wrote a letter to Jefferson congratulating him on his election and expressing concern about the state’s constitution, which didn’t specifically provide for religious liberty. Baptists had long been persecuted in the colonies due to their emotional religious ceremonies, their decision to baptize adults instead of children, and their belief in the separation of church and state. The Baptist Association of Danbury wanted to be sure that they’d be protected under Jefferson’s presidency.

Jefferson saw this as an opportunity to explain his views on state-sponsored religion. “I have long wished to find [an occasion to say] why I do not proclaim fastings & thanksgivings, as my predecessors did,” Jefferson wrote to his attorney general and friend, Levi Lincoln.

At the time, Jefferson’s political enemies, the Federalists, loved to use his stance on the separation of church and state as a political cudgel, convincing Americans that he was an atheist who was making America less godly. Perhaps his response to the Baptists, which would be widely read, could make his views clearer and protect him against those slurs.

In an early draft of the letter, Jefferson faced the Federalist accusations head-on, explaining that he considered declaring fasts or days of thanksgiving to be expressions of religion and that he opposed them because they were remnants of Britain’s reign over the American colonies.

But Levi Lincoln warned him that his words might be construed as a criticism of New England, where feast of thanksgiving had become a beloved tradition. After careful consideration, Jefferson decided to drop the reference from his letter. His public reply to the Danbury Baptists didn’t include a comment on public celebrations of thanksgiving. Rather, Jefferson told them he believed in “a wall of separation between Church and State.”

Jefferson paid the political price for that edit. “Withholding from the public the rationale for his policy on thanksgivings and fasts did not solve Jefferson’s problem,” writes historian James Hutson. Since the public didn’t know the reasoning behind his lack of thanksgiving proclamations, says Hutson, he remained vulnerable to Federalist attacks that accused him of godlessness.

In fact, Jefferson had once declared a Thanksgiving of his own: In 1779, while serving as governor of Virginia, hedeclared a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer. In 1808, he explained why he had been willing to do so as governor, but not president. Jefferson believed he could not endorse such a holiday without running afoul of the First Amendment—and furthermore, he considered days of thanksgiving the responsibility of the states, not the federal government.

For Jefferson, it was more important to maintain a strict separation of church and state than to cave in to the public’s love of giving thanks. But since he never explained himself in public, American citizens never got the chance to appreciate his principled stance on the holiday. Jefferson’s public silence on Thanksgiving spun out into a centuries-long rumor that he was a Turkey Day grinch—especially when his successor, James Madison, resuscitated the tradition in 1815.

So if you dined with Jefferson on a Holiday like say Thanksgiving after he was Governor of Virginia and talked about it. This is what you might have been served. 

Jefferson’s Foods: 

From writing the Declaration of Independence to commissioning the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson is one of the most influential figures in our presidential history. But strides toward social and political freedom were not the only things he made relevant during his two terms. We have Jefferson’s unique taste to thank for popularizing some of the most beloved foods in American culture—think ice cream, mac ‘n’ cheese and even french fries.

Ice Cream

While it’s untrue that Jefferson invented ice cream, his obsession with serving the frozen treat at dinner parties greatly popularized it in America. There are multiple references of ice cream popping up in White House history between 1801 and 1809, and several notes of guests describing its presentation “inside of a crust or pastry” (pie à la mode, anyone?). Jefferson’s own ice cream recipe was inspired from his time in France and is one of the ten recipes in his handwriting that still exist today.

Tomatoes harvested from Monticello’s Vegetable Garden2. Tomatoes

We can say with certainty that Thomas Jefferson both cultivated and ate tomatoes from 1809 until 1824 and quite possibly grew them as early as 1781. Tomatoes were not as popular in Jefferson’s time and were often believed to be poisonous because of their membership in the Nightshade plant family. According to one published report, Jefferson created quite a bit of consternation when he publicly ate a tomato in front of the present Miller-Claytor house in Lynchburg.

Macaroni and Cheese….thank you sir so much!

There may not be an exact known inventor of “mac ‘n’ cheese,” but Jefferson’s connections to this ever-popular dish are strong. One of the few surviving recipes in Jefferson’s hand is nouilly á maccaroni.  Although the recipe is simply for noodles, a couple of Jefferson’s relatives wrote down recipes for baked macaroni with the now-familiar milk, butter and cheese. Federalist senator Manasseh Cutler described eating “a pie called macaroni” at the President’s House in 1802, and the population hasn’t stopped raving about it since.

President Jefferson was enamored by macaroni and cheese, which he discovered on a trip to France. Jefferson is actually credited with increasing macaroni’s popularity in the United States after he served it at a State dinner in 1802

French Fries …. What would fast food be without this item?

‘Potatoes, raw, in small rounds, deep-fried’ as described by Jefferson

Jefferson returned to America from France with a recipe for pommes de terre frites a cru en petites tranches, which essentially translates to “deep-fried potatoes in small cuttings.”  His notes from the President’s house contain perhaps the earliest American reference to this now ubiquitous food. Mary Randolph, one of Jefferson’s relatives, included a recipe for fried potatoes in her historic cookbook, The Virginia House-Wife. Though they have a round shape instead, the potatoes are otherwise nearly identical to what we call french fries.

Other Foods

The Founding Fathers certainly were fond of their wine, and Thomas Jefferson was no exception. He also enjoyed (many) glasses of Madeira. But he was also a worldly man and brought foods from his travels back to the United States. He loved waffles, Parmesan cheese, and French cuisine.

Recipe for a Pie called Macaroni 

Congressman Manasseh Cutler of Massachusetts wrote this of the dinner menu he attended at the White House on February 6, 1802: “Dined at the President’s—Rice soup, round of beef, turkey, mutton, ham, loin of veal, cutlets of mutton or veal, fried eggs, fried beef, a pie called macaroni.”

Macaroni was an ancient Old World dish that Thomas Jefferson became smitten with on a trip to Italy. He was so entranced, he shipped a pasta machine back to America around 1790 and wrote of the dish. He describes making a paste “with flour, water & less yeast than is used for making bread” and running it through the machine to create macaroni. It was a dish he enjoyed and liked to serve to guests.  His Holiday Fare! 

A Pie Called Macaroni

Mary Randolph’s recipe, in her 1824 cookbook The Virginia Housewife, was a standard of the day: “Boil as much macaroni as will fill your dish, in milk and water till quite tender, drain it on a sieve, sprinkle a little salt over it, put a layer in your dish, then cheese and butter as in the polenta, and bake it in the same manner.”

Macaroni and Cheese Pie……Thomas Jefferson..

4–6 servings

Ingredients 

1½ tablespoons plus 1½ teaspoons salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

¼ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

2 cups elbow macaroni (luck would have it we do not have to make this today unless you want to)

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

5½ ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (about 1½ cups)

Topping

3 tablespoons butter

1 cup fine breadcrumbs

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

Make the macaroni. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 2-quart baking dish and set aside.

Combine 1½ teaspoons of the salt, the black pepper, pepper flakes, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Set aside.

Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat and add the remaining salt. Add the pasta and stir. Cook, stirring frequently, until the pasta is al dente, 7 to 11 minutes.

Remove the stockpot from the heat, add 1 cup cold water, and stir. Drain the pasta well in a colander and rinse lightly under warm water. Shake dry, transfer the pasta to a large bowl, and set aside.

Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until warm. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Whisk the flour into the butter, stirring until blended and smooth, about 1 minute. Gradually pour the milk into the butter-flour mixture, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens, 5 to 6 minutes.

Whisk in the reserved spice mix and Dijon mustard. Add the cheddar cheese and stir until melted and smooth. Pour the sauce over the pasta, stirring to coat, and transfer to the prepared baking dish.

Make the topping. Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium-high heat. Add the breadcrumbs, and toss to coat. Remove from the heat, and stir in the Parmesan.

Evenly sprinkle the topping on the pasta. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the top is bubbly and golden.

Did Florida Host the First Thanksgiving? What!!!!!

More than 50 years before the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth, Spanish colonists in Florida feasted with Native Americans in what some call the first Thanksgiving.

Blaring trumpets and thundering artillery serenaded Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés as he waded ashore on September 8, 1565. The Spanish admiral kissed a cross held aloft by the fleet’s captain, Father Francisco Lopez, then claimed Florida for both his God and his country. As curious members of the indigenous Timucua tribe looked on, the 800 newly arrived colonists gathered around a makeshift altar as Father Lopez celebrated a Catholic mass of thanksgiving for their safe arrival in the newly christened settlement of St. Augustine. At the invitation of Menéndez, the Timucuans then joined the newcomers in a communal meal.

Some Florida historians have argued that this feast—and not the one held 56 years later by the Pilgrims and Wampanoags in Plymouth, Massachusetts—was actually North America’s first Thanksgiving. “It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land,” wrote University of Florida professor emeritus of history Michael Gannon in his book “The Cross in the Sand.”

The menu for the meal shared by the Spaniards and Timucuans lacked most of today’s typical Thanksgiving dishes, but it did feature a traditional post-Thanksgiving staple—leftovers. Unlike the Pilgrims, who served food freshly harvested from American soil, the Spanish were forced to make do with whatever provisions survived the long voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. According to Robyn Gioia, author of the children’s book “America’s REAL First Thanksgiving,” the European colonists likely ate hard biscuits and cocido—a rich garbanzo stew made with pork, garlic, saffron, cabbage and onion—washed down with red wine.

“The Timucua ate what was available to them locally and that could have included alligator, bear, wild turkey, venison, tortoise and food from the sea such as turtle, shark, mullet or sea catfish,” Gioia says. Archaeological research also shows the indigenous people ate large amounts of oysters and clams along with beans and squash.

Some historians argue that while America’s first Thanksgiving indeed took place in Florida, it actually occurred 40 miles further north and one year earlier than the one in St. Augustine when French Huguenots—Calvinists like the Pilgrims—held a service of thanksgiving and feasted with the Timucuans to celebrate the June 1564 establishment of Fort Caroline along the St. John’s River in present-day Jacksonville. “We sang a psalm of Thanksgiving unto God, beseeching him that it would please his Grace to continue his accustomed goodness toward us,” French explorer Rene Goulaine de Laudonnière wrote in his journal.

Unfortunately, divine blessings were fleeting for the French colonists. Less than two weeks after landing in the New World, Menéndez led an attack on Fort Caroline that resulted in the slaying of 130 French Huguenots, whom the Spaniards saw as heretics and interlopers. Weeks later the Spanish colonists massacred an additional 200 French shipwreck survivors at an inlet near St. Augustine that was eventually dubbed “Matanzas”—the Spanish word for “slaughters.”

The bloodshed helped to wash away historical memory of the thanksgiving ceremonies held by both the French and Spanish settlers in the 1560s until their rediscovery in recent decades. But Florida isn’t the only state that began in the 20th century to stake a claim on America’s first Thanksgiving. An historical marker erected by the Texas Society of the Daughters of the American Colonists outside Canyon, Texas, states that Father Juan de Padilla conducted a thanksgiving service there in May 1541 for an army of 1,500 accompanying Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. Virginia and Maine have also put themselves forward as hosts of the nation’s first Thanksgiving in the years before the arrival of the Mayflower.

James W. Baker, author of “Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday,” notes that it was traditional for European explorers, such as Ponce de Leon upon his 1513 arrival in Florida, to give formal thanks for a safe trans-Atlantic crossing, but these isolated pre-Pilgrim ceremonies bear little connection to the future American holiday.

“While any of these can be said to be ‘Thanksgivings’ actually celebrated before 1620 and the Pilgrims, none were repeated or resulted in spawning a new tradition. As just isolated and ephemeral events, they do not bear any real historical significance beyond their position in time,” Baker says. “None of these events were made anything of historically, or even rediscovered, until the 20th century, and thus did not contribute to our modern American holiday tradition.”

Historians say that while America’s Thursday Thanksgiving holiday has roots in New England’s Puritan Calvinist tradition, there never was a single “first Thanksgiving”—neither in Plymouth for the three-day harvest celebration in 1621 or in any other place. He points out that the first time anyone claimed that the Pilgrims hosted the first Thanksgiving was more than two centuries later in 1841. “While we can argue the case for Florida or Texas or any other claimant as a true ‘first’ occurrence of a holiday of that name, it is ultimately a moot point as all of them lack any historical agency in the evolution of the modern holiday.”

Modern Version of a Colonial Thick Corn Mush, This no-fail 5 ingredient jiffy corn casserole recipe is versatile and bakes up into a savory side dish that will complement any meal.

When you sit down to a comforting dinner, whether pot roast, pork chops or grilled chicken, what side dishes do you make? This corn casserole recipe is easy and one of our favorite side dishes to make for everything from a weeknight dinner to a holiday meal. Which you probably find on the table in the Colonies. Whether Florida, Texas, New England or Jamestown. 

One of my favorite things about winter time is sitting down together as a family around the dinner table with a hot home-cooked meal. It’s this time of year when we like to pull out all of the classic family recipes such as meatloaf, baked chicken, Mexican soups….good, simple comfort food.

One of our favorite side dishes to have when we sit down together is this simple 5 Ingredient Corn Casserole.  This dish is so simple and versatile. Trust me…you won’t be able to mess it up!

This recipe was given to me by a friend, but if you’ve ever heard of is Paula Deen’s corn casserole, it’s very similar. I’m not sure where this originated though. It’s been around for years.

Is corn casserole the same thing as corn pudding?

I’ve realized since we shared this recipe that many people call this corn pudding. My husband loves pudding so he’s totally on board with this. This recipe does have an almost creamy texture from the cream corn, butter and sour cream.

Call it either…corn casserole or corn pudding. It’s basically the same thing. We do have a recipe that we call “corn pudding”. It has more of a custard base than this recipe. Find the corn pudding casserole here.

5 Ingredient Corn Casserole/Pudding

Jiffy Corn Casserole Ingredients

1 can of corn, drained

1 can of creamed corn

1 cup of sour cream

1 stick of melted butter (½ cup)

1 box of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix

There are many variations of this corn casserole. You can add egg, a touch of sugar, or cheese. But in our favorite? These 5 simple ingredients.

In order to make this rich, buttery casserole, there are only 2 steps:

Throw all of those ingredients in a bowl and mix them up.

Transfer the mixture to a greased 8×8 baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. The exact baking time will depend on the exact size pan you use, so just be sure to watch the casserole closely. You’ll know it is done when the center is completely set.

This dish is truly winter-time comfort food for our family.  We hope that it becomes a favorite for your family, too!

Want to try a variation of traditional corn casserole?

Corn Casserole with Eggs

Mix in 2 eggs….this creates just a bit more of a lighter corn casserole.

Cheesy Corn Casserole

Add ½ to 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese….because cheese makes everything better, right?

Corn Casserole with Sugar

Add ¼ cup to ½ cup sugar….this of course makes it a very sweet corn casserole. If you add the eggs and sugar, it almost takes like a corn cake and could be eaten for dessert!

Questions:

Can I make corn casserole ahead of time?

Yes! Make this casserole up to 48 hours in advance. Mix up the casserole, place it in the baking dish and cover it with plastic wrap. When you are ready to bake it, remove it from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before you put it in the oven. Then bake as the recipe suggests. **It might take a few extra minutes to bake since the casserole will be cold.**

How to Double Corn Casserole

We often double this recipe and bake it in a 9×13 pan. Depending on your oven, this may take an additional 15 minutes to bake, so plan accordingly.

Can you cook corn casserole in a crock pot?

Yes! Cook in a slow cooker on high for 2 ½ hours or on low for 4 hours. All slow cookers heat differently so watch the casserole closely. If you double the recipe it may take longer to cook.

Does corn casserole need to be refrigerated?

Yes! If there are leftovers of corn casserole, put them in a storage container or cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Can I freeze a corn casserole?

For the best textured casserole, I would not recommend making this in advance and freezing the entire casserole to reheat later. If you have leftovers, they will freeze okay if you store it in an airtight container.