Quote Originally Posted by Zen View Post
"Christmas pudding is a steamed pudding, heavy with dried fruit and nuts, and usually made with suet"

Suet?
Suet is fat off beef (or maybe also mutton) kidneys. It's a fairly hard, white fat that doesn't really have a lot of taste, just a unique melting point that makes it useful for steamed pudding.

It's one of the secret ingredients in my Mom's family's Carrot Pudding, traditionally served for desert around Christmas time (at least it was, until everybody got worried about eating too much fat and/or any meat products at all). I wouldn't use the stuff sold for bird feed and always used to get mine from the butcher, usually by special order.

Meanwhile, back on topic, I like good fruitcake, but can't be bothered with the store-bought stuff with artificially green & red things.