The origin & evolution of British pudding

To focus attention on British usage (of the word pudding) is legitmate, since pudding may be claimed as a British invention, and is certainly a characteristic dish of British cuisine...It seems that the ancestor of the term was the Latin word botellus, meaning sausage, from which came boudin and also pudding. Puddings in all their varity and glory may be seen as the multiple descendants of a Roman sausage. The Haggis, buy its nature and the ways it is prepared, illuminates the connection. In the Middle Ages the black pudding (blood sausages) was joined by the white pudding, which was also made in a sausage skin, or sometimes a stomach lining...White pudding was almost completely cereal in composition, usually containing a suet and breadcrumb mixture. It was variously enriched and flavoured, and there were sweet versions. In diverging from these origins English cooks found two paths which could be taken to advance pudding cookery. The first was to take advantage of th fact that by the 16th century many ordinary houses had small ovens built into the chimney breast, or at the side of the main bread oven where there was one. These ovens were not very hot. It was possible to bake a white pudding mixture or a cereal pottage slowly enough to suit it. Often, it was enclosed in pastry...this path led to baked puddings. The second path involved finding a different container to replace the gut used for sausages...The breakthrough came when the pudding-cloth was invented, around the beginning of the 17th century...During the 18th century, suet mixtures were joined by the first sponge puddings, and boiled and baked batters became common. Sweet puddings included all kinds of fruits, jam, spices, meringue, and other delicacies. Plain puddings remained important. Among savoury types, the first beef steak and mutton puddings appeared. Sweet milk pottages made with cereals such as rice or barley persisted. As new kinds of starchy product began to be imported...these were also adopted for that purpse...The disappearance of domestic servants in the 20th century brought further changes. The pudding-cloth was found to be difficult for housewives...boiled pudding were now almost made in basins covered with greased paper and foil and steamed partly immersed in water. Thus did the British steamed pudding come fully into its own. Roll-shaped puddings were either converted to basin format or baked in specially made tubular tins.