Interesting facts about rice pudding

rice pudding

Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk.

Other ingredients include sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, raisins, almonds, cashew, custard, vanilla, cream, coconut milk, maple syrup, honey, jam, saffron etc.

Rice puddings are found in nearly every area of the world.

Recipes can greatly vary even within a single country.

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The true root of rice pudding is hard to discern – the dish can be traced to multiple culture across millennia, including ancient China, the Byzantine Empire, and ancient India, where rice was a major food source.

Many dishes resembling rice pudding can be found in Southeast Asia, many of which have Chinese influences.

In the United Kingdom, rice pudding is a traditional dessert. The earliest rice pudding recipes were called whitepot and date from the Tudor period; one of the earliest recipes was written down by Gervase Markham in 1615.

Rice pudding is mentioned frequently in literature of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, typically in the context of a cheap, plain, familiar food, often served to children or invalids, and often rendered boring by too-frequent inclusion in menus.

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In Canada and the United States, most recipes come from European immigrants. In the latter half of the 20th century, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American recipes have also become more common.

In the Nordic countries, rice porridge is a common breakfast and sometimes lunch.

In Sweden, cinnamon-flavored rice pudding with an almond hidden inside is a Christmas custom. Find it, and good fortune is yours for a year.

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In Iceland, it is sometimes served with cold slátur, a type of liver sausage.

Buddhist Sutras state that Gautama Buddha‘s final meal before his enlightenment was a large bowl of rice pudding, prepared for him by a girl named Sujata.

The largest serving of rice pudding weighed 2,070 kg (4,563.56lbs)and was achieved by His Holiness Dr.Vasanth Vijayji Maharaj (India) on behalf of Shree Parshwa Padmavathi Seva Trust, in Krishnagiri, Tamilnadu, India, on 31 May 2015.

National rice pudding day is observed annually on August 9th.