Chris's Week Thirty-Four Recipe: Boiled Maize Pudding

I discovered a neat website last night: Feeding America. It's a digitized collection of old American cookbooks from the 18th to the early 20th century. I decided to try a recipe from The Complete Cook, published in 1864:

Boiled Maize Pudding

Stir Indian meal and warm milk together "pretty stiff;" a little salt and two or three "great spoonfuls" of molasses added; also a spoonful of ginger, or any other spice that may be preferred. Boil it in a tightly-covered pan, or in a very thick cloth; if the water gets in, it will ruin it. Leave plenty of room for Indian meal swells very much. The milk with which it is mixed should be merely warmed; if it be scalding hot, the pudding will break to pieces. Some chop suet very fine and warm in the milk; others warm thin slices of apple to be stirred into the pudding. Water will answer instead of milk.

This I translated to:

Mix together:

generous 1/2 c medium grind cornmeal

pinch salt

1/4 t ginger

6 T milk

generous tablespoon of dark molasses

Boil in a double boiler about 10 minutes or until the pudding is set.

Would I try this recipe again? I think I'll have to, just so I can see if I can get it to work right. The pudding was very 'dry' at the end of 10 minutes although the corn meal had softened to what I consider an acceptable level (sort of a cornmeal al dente). I think I needed to add more liquid content to begin with.