LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The California Employment Development Department said the state’s jobless rate — as well as that of Lake County — rose in November.
The report said California’s unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percentage point to 4.9% in November despite the state’s employers adding 9,300 nonfarm payroll jobs to the economy, according to data released today by the Employment Development Department, or EDD.
That’s compared to 4.1% a year ago, the EDD said.
In Lake County, the jobless rate rose to 6.1% in November, up from 5.7% in October. The November rate is the highest Lake County has had since March, when it hit 6.4%.
The November 2022 unemployment rate in Lake County was 5.3%.
Lake County’s rate ranked it No. 43 out of California’s 58 counties.
The EDD reported that, since the current economic expansion began in April 2020, California has gained 3,240,500 jobs, which averages out to a gain of 75,360 jobs per month, and now sits at 485,900 jobs (or 2.7%) above the state’s pre-pandemic total.
California’s 9,300 November nonfarm job gain contributes to 11 consecutive months of job gains in 2023 to date after last December’s losses.
In related data that figures into the state’s unemployment rate, the EDD said there were 323,975 people certifying for Unemployment Insurance benefits during the November 2023 sample week.
That compares to 356,668 people in October and 306,550 people in November 2022. Concurrently, 37,594 initial claims were processed in the November 2023 sample week, which was a month-over decrease of 3,115 claims from October, and also a year-over decrease of 10,227 claims from November 2022, the EDD reported.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — Lakeport’s newest park has been bedecked with holiday cheer for its first Christmas thanks to a new community Christmas tree.
The tree, installed on Dec. 13, is a holiday highlight of the newly opened Xabatin Community Park.
It sits at the edge of the park overlooking Clear Lake.
Since its arrival, the tree has been a hit with community members. Many great photos of the picturesque tree covered with colorful lights, with Mount Konocti and Clear Lake as a backdrop, have been posted on social media in recent weeks by city staff and park visitors.
The tree project’s completion has been credited to the efforts of Stacey Mattina, who just finished up her 2023 term as mayor for the city of Lakeport, and District 4 Supervisor Michael Green.
Mattina took the idea for the tree to Green, who pitched in $25,000 — the lion’s share of the cost — from the discretionary funds he and other board members receive from county cannabis revenue.
On Dec. 19, Mattina attended the Board of Supervisors to thank the county for its help with the project and making the city's holiday dreams come true.
She said the city had a wild idea to bring more cheer to downtown with the tree.
“Thanks to your generosity and support, it’s now a reality,” Mattina said.
The city of Lakeport purchased the 16-foot “Giant Everest” model artificial tree from the Wintergreen Corp., a company based in Alpharetta, Georgia.
“This isn’t just any tree. It’s a symbol of unity and community spirit,” said Mattina.
In addition to the tree being reusable year after year, next year it will be 10 feet taller, Mattina said.
Wintergreen offers commercial grade trees ranging up to 76 feet tall.
Green showed up to the Lakeport City Council meeting later on Dec. 19 to offer praise to Mattina. He said he believed the community owed her thanks for having the vision to add a holiday-oriented feature to the park, which benefits not just the city of Lakeport but all of District 4.
Whatever he contributed is a pittance, he said. “It’s just a little gesture.”
Green said the tree, and the park, look great. He said his hat was off to the city for coming up with a vision to unify the community after what it’s been through over the last few years.
Mattina thanked him, and said the city couldn’t have done it without his help.
Mattina’s council colleagues and City Manager Kevin Ingram said Mattina had a hand in helping Public Works staff assemble the tree, including helping with screwing in the huge number of light bulbs.
In addition to extending the height of the tree, the city reported that it is planning to expand its holiday decorations along the lakefront in 2024.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The effort to find the next poet laureate for Lake County is underway.
Georgina Marie Guardado, the current poet laureate, officially announced the search.
“It has been my honor to serve two consecutive terms in this role during a period of history that was undoubtedly challenging for all of us. And yet, the power of words did not yield. Our county undoubtedly has a rich literary community and I look forward to the search for the next Poet Laureate!” Guardado said in a Facebook post.
The poet laureate, which is a volunteer post, represents and promotes poetry and literacy in the community.
The person filling the role also will help “facilitate collaborations between local creatives, cultural organizations, local businesses, and community institutions,” according to the online application.
The Board of Supervisors established the poet laureate post in 1998.
Guardado has held the post for two terms since 2020.
She is the youngest Lake County poet laureate, as well as its first Hispanic American female.
Guardado also is the first person to be appointed to the office for more than one term, and the 11th individual to hold it.
The next term will be for 2024 to 2026.
She reported that applications — which opened on Dec. 15 — will be accepted through Feb. 1, 2024.
Visit this website to see application guidelines and to apply online.
For questions or assistance with the application, email Guardado at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
From assisting customers to ringing up sales, retail workers are the economic backbone of the nation’s retail industry, especially during the busy holiday shopping season.
In 2022, 9.2 million workers were employed as retail salespersons, cashiers or first-line supervisors of retail sales workers — collectively referred to as retail workers, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS).
Since 2010, the relative number of U.S. retail workers remained over 9 million, but their share of the total workforce fell from 6.9% in 2010 to 5.6% in 2022.
The decline is expected to continue. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment in retail sales occupations will decrease by 2% between 2022 and 2032.
Retail work is common
Despite the decreases in the number and share of retail workers, retail remains a common occupation. In 2022, 3.1 million workers were retail salespersons and cashiers and around 3 million were first-line supervisors of retail sales workers.
Retail jobs ranked just below other large occupations such as miscellaneous managers, driver/sales workers and truck drivers and registered nurses.
Earnings
Between 2010 and 2022, the real median earnings of full-time, year-round workers increased by around $1,490 from $55,727 to $57,216. During the same period, median earnings of first-line supervisors of retail workers and cashiers increased by less than $1,000 each. The real median earnings of retail salespersons in 2022 was not statistically different from 2010.
Cashiers were among the lowest-paid members of the retail workforce. In 2022, their median earnings ($27,174) were around 47% less than those of all full-time, year-round workers ($57,216).
Brick-and-mortar stores to internet shopping
The number of retail workers in department stores fluctuated from around 389,000 in 2010 to about 535,000 workers in 2018 and dipping to about 189,000 workers in 2022. The decline in the number of workers could be related to recent closures of large retailers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research suggests that e-commerce will assume a larger role in the retail sector. The ACS shows that the number of retail workers in electronic shopping continually climbed between 2010 and 2022, from around 63,000 to around 165,000.
Challenges ahead
Despite ongoing technological changes in the way customers interact with retail businesses and general consolidation of retail stores, the retail workforce remains a substantial part of the American labor market.
Yet, retail occupations remain among the lowest-paying jobs and retail workers often face not only limited opportunities for advancement but nonstandard and unpredictable work schedules.
Lynda Laughlin is a senior advisor in the Census Bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division, or SEHSD. Julia Beckhusen is chief of SEHSD.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The National Weather Service is giving Lake County a forecast of rain for Christmas week.
Christmas day is anticipated to have increasing clouds with temperatures in the mid to high 50s.
The Christmas night forecast calls for a 20% chance of rain, with temperatures dropping into the low 40s.
Tuesday’s conditions are forecast to have patchy dog during the day and an expectation of showers that night,
From Wednesday through Sunday, the forecast calls for chances of rain. An inch to an inch and a half of rain is expected to fall on Wednesday alone.
Temperatures this week are forecast to range in the low 50s during the day and low 40s at night.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — There are many dogs at Lake County Animal Care and Control waiting to be adopted during the holidays.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Australian shepherd, border collie, Chihuahua, Doberman pinscher, German shepherd, Great Pyrenees, hound, Labrador retriever, pit bull, Queensland heeler, shepherd and terrier.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
Those dogs and the others shown on this page at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
The shelter is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
November 2023 was the warmest November in NOAA’s 174-year global climate record.
Last month also continued the year’s record-warm streak, according to scientists and data from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
Below are more highlights from NOAA’s November global climate report:
Climate by the numbers
November 2023
The average global land and ocean surface temperature for November 2023 was 2.59 degrees F (1.44 degrees C) above the 20th-century average of 55.2 degrees F (12.9 degrees C), which makes it the warmest November on record for NOAA.
November also marked the sixth month in a row of record-warm months for 2023. For the eighth consecutive month, the global ocean-surface temperature also set a record high.
November 2023 marked the 47th-consecutive November and the 537th-consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average.
Africa, Asia and South America all had their warmest Novembers on record. North America had its second-warmest November while Oceania had its fifth-warmest November.
Season (September through November 2023)
The season (meteorological spring or autumn, depending on the hemisphere) saw a global surface temperature that was 2.54 degrees F (1.41 degrees C) above the 20th-century average. This ranks as the warmest September–November period on record, and 0.70 of a degree F (0.39 of a degree C) above the previous season record from 2015.
The year to date (YTD, January through November 2023)
The year to date (YTD, January through November 2023) global land and ocean surface temperature was 2.07 degrees F (1.15 degrees C) above the 20th-century average, ranking as the warmest such YTD on record. This also makes the YTD considerably warmer — 0.20 of a degree F, or 0.11 of a degree C — than the previous record-warm such YTD in 2016.
According to NCEI’s Global Annual Temperature Rankings Outlook, there is a greater than 99% chance that 2023 will rank as Earth’s warmest year on record.
Other notable climate events from November:
Global sea ice extent ranked second lowest on record for November: Arctic sea ice extent (coverage) for November 2023 tied 2006 as the eighth smallest in the satellite record, at 3.73 million square miles. This was 190,000 square miles below the 1991–2020 average. Meanwhile, the Antarctic saw its second-smallest November sea ice coverage on record at 5.51 million square miles, or 620,000 square miles below the 1991–2020 average.
The tropics were relatively quiet: Four named storms occurred across the globe in November, which tied for the second fewest in November since 1981. One of those reached tropical cyclone strength (sustained winds of 74 mph or higher), and none reached major tropical cyclone strength (sustained winds of 111 mph or higher). No storms were active in the Atlantic, which happens about once every three Novembers. The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially ended on November 30, had an above-average number of named storms (20) but near-average numbers of hurricanes (seven) and major hurricanes (three).
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — CDFA’s Office of Farm to Fork has announced the awarding of approximately $9 million in grants for 103 projects through the Healthy Refrigeration Grant Program, including two projects in Lake County that seek to address food insecurity.
The grants will fund energy-efficient and climate-friendly refrigeration and freezer equipment for corner stores, small businesses, and food donation programs in low-income or low-food access areas throughout the state.
Grantees will use the new equipment to stock California-grown fresh produce, nuts, eggs, meat and dairy products, as well as minimally processed and culturally appropriate foods.
Redwood Empire Food Bank, which serves Lake, Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties, has received $200,000 for 22 units — reach-in coolers and reach-in freezers — that will either replace aged, inefficient equipment or will supplement existing refrigeration capacity to allow their partners to drastically increase the scope of their work and the quality of the food they can provide.
The Kelseyville Food Pantry, managed by Kelseyville Presbyterian Church, has been awarded $5,238. The pantry, which has operated since 2012, serves all of Lake County, with a focus on the greater Kelseyville and Lakeport areas.
They will receive one standalone refrigerator and one standalone freezer. Both will be in their food pantry and will increase their capacity to store and distribute perishable items for the twice-monthly food distributions.
“This program is funding refrigeration units across California, from Humboldt County to San Diego,” said CDFA Secretary Karen Ross. “That demonstrates the importance of these grants in increasing food access in underserved communities. We thank Gov. Newsom and the California Legislature for funding this effort.”
A record number of Californians are reported to be traveling this holiday season, one of the busiest holiday periods AAA has tracked in more than 20 years.
More than 115.2 million people are expected to travel during the holiday between Dec. 23 and Jan. 1. That number is 2.2% higher than last year and marks the second-highest number since 2000.
More than 15.4 million Calfornians will be among those packing their bags, beating the previous record set in 2019 by 2.6%.
“The travel outline for the year-end holidays echoes what we’ve been seeing in travel throughout 2023,” said Brian Ng, senior vice president of membership and travel marketing for AAA Northern California. “Despite high costs, more Americans are prioritizing creating memories with loved ones and exploring new destinations.”
The organization said drivers should anticipate up to 20% longer travel times nationwide.
The heaviest congestion is expected Saturday, Dec. 23, and Thursday, Dec. 28.
AAA Northern California urges people to check the forecast, consider reservations for airport parking spots and avoid checking luggage if possible, make sure your vehicle is ready and to travel during off-peak periods.
Californians – including minors – are still able to buy flavored electronic cigarettes online, even after the state’s much-publicized ban went into effect. That’s the key finding of my team’s new study, published in JAMA Network Open.
On Dec. 21, 2022, California enacted Senate Bill 793, which prohibited the sale of most flavored tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to people of all ages. Hookahs, premium cigars and loose-leaf tobacco were exempted from the legislation.
The ban was motivated, in large part, by a desire to reduce to reduce consumption of tobacco among young people – who are particularly attracted to the flavors in e-cigarettes, such as mango and creme.
Since 2021, we have been collecting data on the tobacco industry. As part of this project, we also worked to determine whether minors could illegally purchase flavored e-cigarettes online.
Before and after the passage of SB 793, our researchers – all posing online as minors under the age of 21 – attempted to buy flavored e-cigarette products from 26 websites that sold them in California.
A “purchase attempt” occurred when a researcher was able to add a flavored e-cigarette product to their cart, make it through the age verification system – if any – and provide their credit card information.
Before SB 793, our purchase attempt success rate was 52%. After SB 793, our success rate actually rose – to almost 61%.
Research shows that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2009 ban on flavored cigarettes reduced adolescent tobacco use. That’s why California has spearheaded progressive tobacco control policies – not only with SB 793, but through local sales restrictions in dozens of California cities. But if online vendors either flout or are unaware of these laws, young people may still have access to flavored tobacco products.
What still isn’t known
It remains unclear as to why flavored e-cigarettes are still available from online retailers in California. It may be that vendors are flouting the new law, are ignorant of it, or do not believe the new law applies to online sales.
A comprehensive evaluation of SB 793 compliance among brands and vendors that sell their products online in California would help determine the extent to which flavored e-cigarettes are still available. This research would provide data on retailer awareness of the new legislation and would show whether they understand the potential consequences for being in violation of the new law.
Our research had several limitations. For one, our protocol for the study was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the health and safety of our team in mind, we avoided in-person interactions. This means that we did not receive the package of flavored e-cigarettes from a delivery person.
Since we stopped our attempted online purchases with placing items in an electronic shopping cart, this precluded our ability to examine whether age would have been verified at delivery and to calculate the actual purchase rate. However, only four websites in our study stated that age verification would actually occur at delivery.
Even with these caveats, these findings warrant urgent attention from state agencies to enforce the ban on flavored e-cigarette products in California.
What other research is being done
Another research team collected weekly Google search rates related to online shopping for cigarettes and vaping products in California from January 2018 to May 2023. They found that shopping queries were 194% higher than expected for cigarettes and 162% higher than expected for e-cigarettes – which suggests consumers are searching on Google for vendors promoting banned products.
Irving Berlin was a Jewish immigrant who loved America. As his 1938 song “God Bless America” suggests, he believed deeply in the nation’s potential for goodness, unity and global leadership.
In 1940, he wrote another quintessential American song, “White Christmas,” which the popular entertainer Bing Crosby eventually made famous.
But this was a profoundly sad time for humanity. World War II – what would become the deadliest war in human history – had begun in Europe and Asia, just as Americans were starting to pick up the pieces from the Great Depression.
Catholics in Europe had celebrated Christmas with public merriment since the Middle Ages, but Protestants often denounced the holiday as a vestige of paganism. These religious tensions spilled over to the American colonies and persisted after the Revolutionary War, when slavery divided the nation even further.
After the Civil War, many Americans pined for national traditions that could unify the country. Protestant opposition to Christmas celebrations had relaxed, so Congress finally declared Christmas a federal holiday in 1870. Millions of Americans soon adopted the German tradition of decorating trees. They also exchanged presents, sent cards and shared stories of Santa Claus, a figure whose image the cartoonist Thomas Nast perfected in the late 19th century.
Despite these evolving secular influences, Christmas music and entertainment continued to emphasize Christianity. Churchgoers and carolers often sang “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World.”
‘The best song anybody ever wrote’
Berlin’s inspiration for the song came in 1937, when he spent Christmas in Beverly Hills. He was near the film studios where he worked but far from his wife, Ellin – a devout Catholic – and the New York City home in Manhattan where they had always celebrated the holiday with their three daughters.
Being apart from Ellin that Christmas was particularly difficult: Their infant son had died on Dec. 26, 1928. Irving knew his wife would have to make the annual visit to their son’s grave by herself.
By 1940, Berlin had come up with his lyrics. In his Manhattan office, he sat at his piano and asked his arranger to take down the notes.
“Not only is it the best song I ever wrote,” he promised, “it’s the best song anybody ever wrote.”
Berlin had connected his lonesome Christmas to the broader turmoil of the time, including the outbreak of World War II and fraught debates about America’s role in the world.
This new song reflected his response: a dream of better times and places. It evoked a small town of yesteryear in which horse-drawn sleighs crossed freshly fallen snow. It also imagined a future in which dark days would be “merry and bright” once again.
This was a new kind of Christmas carol. It did not mention the birth of Jesus, angels or wise men – and it was a song that all Americans, including Jewish immigrants, could embrace.
Berlin soon took “White Christmas” back to Hollywood. He wanted it to appear in his newest musical, one that would tell the story of a retired singer whose hotel offered rooms and entertainment, but only on American holidays. He titled the film “Holiday Inn” and pitched it to Paramount Pictures, with Crosby as the lead.
Fighting for ‘the right to dream’
Raised in Spokane, Washington, Crosby had launched his music career in the 1920s. A weekly radio show and a contract with Paramount led to stardom during the 1930s.
With his slim build and protruding ears, Crosby did not look the part of a leading man. But his easygoing demeanor and mellow voice made him immensely popular.
“Holiday Inn” premiered in August 1942. Reviewers barely mentioned the song, but ordinary Americans couldn’t get enough of it. By December it was on every radio, in every jukebox and, as the Christian Science Monitor newspaper noted, in nearly “every home and heart” in the country.
The key reason was the nation’s entry into World War II.
“White Christmas” was not overtly patriotic, but it made Americans think about why they fought, sacrificed and endured separation from their loved ones. As an editorial in the Buffalo Courier-Express concluded, the song “provided a forcible reminder that we are fighting for the right to dream and for memories to dream about.”
This made it a song all Americans could embrace, including those not always treated like Americans.
Affirming faith in humanity
Berlin and Crosby didn’t set out to change how Americans celebrate Christmas. But that’s what they ended up doing.
Their song’s universal appeal and phenomenal success launched a new era of holiday entertainment – traditions that helped Americanize the Christmas season.
Like “White Christmas,” popular songs such as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (1943) tapped into a longing for being with friends and family. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” (1949) and other new songs celebrated snow, sleigh rides and Santa Claus, not the birth of Jesus.
“White Christmas” had already sold 5 million copies by 1947 when Crosby recorded “Merry Christmas,” the first Christmas album ever produced. On the album, “White Christmas” appeared alongside holiday classics such as “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”
Hollywood followed suit. In the popular 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” for example, bonds of family and friendship proved their value just in time for Christmas.
Faith was affirmed, but it was a faith in humanity.
Over the coming decades, Christmas entertainment continued to reach new audiences.
The upbeat songs of Phil Spector’s 1963 album “A Christmas Gift for You,” for example, appealed to baby boomers. Producers also catered to younger audiences with television specials such as “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
Hollywood then rediscovered Christmas during the 1980s, largely because of “A Christmas Story,” a film that didn’t exactly view Christmas through rose-colored glasses. While satirizing the chaos and angst of the holiday season, the film nonetheless embraced Christmas, warts and all. A steady stream of Christmas films followed – “Scrooged,” “Home Alone,” “Elf” – where themes of nostalgia, family and togetherness were ever-present.
Since the 1940s, the Christmas season has become even more inclusive. A 2013 Pew Research survey found that 81% of non-Christians in the U.S. celebrate Christmas. Yes, the holiday has also become more commercial. But that, too, has made it all the more American.
Amid these changes, Irving Berlin’s song has been a holiday mainstay, reminding listeners of what makes them not just American, but human: the importance of home, a longing for togetherness and a shared hope for a better future.
As an American living in Britain in the 1990s, my first exposure to Christmas pudding was something of a shock. I had expected figs or plums, as in the “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” carol, but there were none. Neither did it resemble the cold custard-style dessert that Americans typically call pudding.
Instead, I was greeted with a boiled mass of suet – a raw, hard animal fat this is often replaced with a vegetarian alternative – as well as flour and dried fruits that is often soaked in alcohol and set alight.
It’s in no danger of breaking into my top ten favorite Christmas foods. But as a historian of Great Britain and its empire, I can appreciate the Christmas pudding for its rich global history. After all, it is a legacy of the British Empire with ingredients from around the globe it once dominated and continues to be enjoyed in places it once ruled.
Christmas pudding takes its shape
Christmas pudding is a relatively recent concoction of two older, at least medieval, dishes. The first was a runny porridge known as “plum pottage” in which any mixture of meats, dried fruits and spices might appear – edibles that could be preserved until the winter celebration.
Until the 18th century, “plum” was synonymous with raisins, currants and other dried fruits. “Figgy pudding,” immortalized in the “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” carol, appeared in the written record by the 14th century. A mixture of sweet and savory ingredients, and not necessarily containing figs, it was bagged with flour and suet and cooked by steaming. The result was a firmer, rounded hot mass.
During the 18th century, the two crossed to become the more familiar plum pudding – a steamed pudding packed with the ingredients of the rapidly growing British Empire of rule and trade. The key was less a new form of cookery than the availability of once-luxury ingredients, including French brandy, raisins from the Mediterranean, and citrus from the Caribbean.
Few things had become more affordable than cane sugar which, owing to the labors of millions of enslaved Africans, could be found in the poorest and remotest of British households by mid-century. Cheap sugar, combined with wider availability of other sweet ingredients like citrus and dried fruits, made plum pudding an iconically British celebratory treat, albeit not yet exclusively associated with Christmas.
Such was its popularity that English satirist James Gillray made it the centerpiece of one of his famous cartoons, depicting Napoleon Bonaparte and the British prime minister carving the world in pudding form.
In his 1843 internationally celebrated “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens venerated the dish as the idealized center of any family’s Christmas feast: “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.”
Christmas pudding owed much of its lasting appeal to its socioeconomic accessibility. Victoria’s recipe, which became a classic, included candied citrus peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemons, cloves, brandy and a small mountain of raisins and currants – all affordable treats for the middle class. Those with less means could either opt for lesser amounts or substitutions, such as brandy for ale.
Eliza Acton, a leading cookbook author of the day who helped to rebrand plum pudding as Christmas pudding, offered a particularly frugal recipe that relied on potatoes and carrots.
White colonists’ desires to replicate British culture meant that versions of Christmas pudding soon appeared across the empire. Even European diggers in Austrialia’s goldfields included it in their celebrations by mid-century.
In the 1920s, the British Women’s Patriotic League heavily promoted it – calling it “Empire Pudding” in a global marketing campaign. They praised it as emblem of the empire that should be made from the ingredients of Britain’s colonies and possessions: dried fruits from Australia and South Africa, cinnamon from Ceylon, spices from India and Jamaican rum in place of French brandy.
Such promotional recipes and the mass production of puddings from iconic grocery stores like Sainsbury’s in the 1920s combined to place Christmas puddings on the tables of a myriad of peoples who resided across an empire on which the sun never set.
After the empire
Decolonization did not diminish the appeal of the Christmas pudding. Passengers transiting through London’s airports can find them in abundance this time of year. Their shape and density have baffled airport security scanners for some time, leading to requests to carry them as hand luggage.
In former white settler colonies, like Canada, the tradition endured, although in Australia, where Christmas falls in summer, trifle and pavlova are at least equally common. In parts of India, where it is sometimes known as “pudim,” it remains a traditional favorite, “steeped in tradition,” according to the leading English national daily newspaper, the “Hindustan Times.”
Reflecting modern palates and trends, Jamie Oliver, the celebrated British chef and author, has gluten-free and more modern options this year. His “classic” recipe, however, would not have been out of place on Queen Victoria’s table.
Like so many adaptations around the former empire, it includes some American ingredients: pecans and cranberries as well as bourbon substituted for brandy – an Anglo-American concoction – much like my own family. And I will embrace this one.