Your great-grandparents may well have eaten there. Durgin-Park goes back some 130 years ago when the fame of its Indian pudding, chowders, baked beans and other famous dishes began.
Even though it can be noisy with clattering dishes, and you see boxes and crates piled in corners, it doesn't stop people from all over from coming in for thick slabs of rare roast beef, bear steak in the winter, and huge bowls of New England boiled dinners served family style.
While famous for Apple Pan-Dowdy, it is Durgin-Park's Indian pudding that draws people in November.
I quote an excerpt from the story-telling brochure: "Every morning at 11, for the past 42 years, a retired sea captain has dined on chowder, Indian pudding and coffee. Twice a week, for the past 44 years, a little old lady from Beacon Hill comes in at 5 p.m. and orders two man-sized portions of Indian pudding and nothing else."
If you go, be prepared for no fancy dining, eating at long tables that seat 20 people, and really good food.
In case you need a primer: Indian Pudding is an old-time dessert served on Thanksgiving, especially. Traditionally it is served hot with unsweetened heavy cream, or more up-to-date, a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Durgin-Park's Indian Pudding
Serves 8
Preheat oven to 250 degrees; need 4-quart crock or deep casserole dish
Ingredients:
1 cup cornmeal
1âÑ2 cup molasses
1âÑ4 cup sugar
1âÑ4 cup butter (lard used to be favored)
1âÑ2 teaspoon salt
1âÑ4 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs, well-beaten
11âÑ2 quarts milk (6 cups)
Mix together all ingredients with half of the milk that has been heated to just below boiling. Place in a well-buttered stone crock and bake in a slow oven until it boils. Then stir in the remaining half of the hot milk. It then takes 5 to 7 hours to bake.
The secret of its excellence lies in very slow cooking. The longer the pudding bakes the darker and thicker it gets. It's done when it holds its shape on a spoon.
My alternate "quicker-cooking" version:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, molasses, sugar, butter, salt, and baking soda. In large saucepan, heat 4 cups of the milk until hot. Gradually whisk the hot milk into the cornmeal mixture. Pour pudding mixture into the saucepan.
Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until it boils, thickens, and becomes creamy, about 15 minutes. Stir in beaten eggs. Pour into buttered crock or deep casserole dish and bake in middle of oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Do not cover. Pour the remaining 2 cups of hot milk into the pudding as it bakes, stirring it well, baking about 2 hours longer.
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Pat Altomare's "Pat's Kitchen" runs weekly in the Wednesday Home section of The Eagle-Tribune. She invites your questions and comments. E-mail patakitchen@yahoo.com, or write c/o The Eagle-Tribune, 100 Turnpike St., North Andover, MA 01845.
