Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1911 — BIRTH OF SUCCULENT “DUFF” [ARTICLE]

BIRTH OF SUCCULENT “DUFF”

Pudding That Is the Favorite of Sailors Given Name by Itllterats* Boatswain's Mate. ■ i Captain Turner of the Mauretania recounted the other day the birth 0( plum duff, the dish of sailors. '“Duff,” he said, “had a Christmas origin. One Christmas day, hundreds of years ago, at sea, a ahip in a storm was swept by a comber that carried off her cook, her crate of chickens, her turkeys —in a word, the whole raw material of her Christmas dinner. But the sailors were determined to pudding. They knew nothing-about cooking, and they drew lots for their new cook. The lot fell to the boatswain’s mate, "This chap fished up a cook book from the bottom of his sea cheßt, ran over the pudding recipes, and chose one that began: “ ’Make a stiff dough.* “He made a pudding after this recipe- It wse stuffed with Malaga raisins and covered witft a rich sauce. The men were delighted. “ 'Put a name to It,’ they said. 'Put a name to It.’ J ; : “And the boatswain's mate, knowing that ‘r-o-u-g-h’ was pronounced 'rougV and thinking ‘d-o-u-g-h’ followed the same rule, answered readily: “ It’s called duff, mates,”’