There are certain names of puddings that, if whispered to an Englishman of a certain age, will bring back near-Proustian reveries about their childhood. Rhubarb crumble. Bakewell tart. Sticky toffee pudding. The most naughty-sounding of them all, spotted dick.

These, and many more, are often dismissed with the sobriquet ‘nursery food’, but in fact only the most well-heeled of dessert-munchers would ever have enjoyed such fare in their nursery. In fact, they were mostly likely to have been encountered at various fee-paying institutions, firstly as a staple of the boarding school lunch or supper. They then would have kept popping up in different guises throughout life, whether served at Oxbridge high table, at an Inns of Court lunch or simply on demand in a members’ club on St James.

Not,

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