The Day Ahead

The Pudding Hollow Pudding Festival is coming up! Save Sunday, October 6, as your date for Hawley Magic in 2019. This event takes place only once every five years so you won’t want to miss it. The day will begin with the arrival of puddings, which are due at 11 a.m. Lunch will take place at 12:30 or thereabouts, and our entertainment will get going around 1:30 (when everyone has eaten and the judges have made their difficult decisions).

Our judges this year will be Dennis Picard, a living-history professional who specializes in puddings and ice cutting; Charlotte Rutledge, manager of the test kitchen at King Arthur Flour; and Kathleen Wall, colonial foodways culinarian at Plimoth Plantation.

 

Do check out our roster of wonderful prizes. And the menu to the right will give you lots of information about where we are, what we do, and how you can participate.

If you’re planning to submit a pudding, you won’t be left to twiddle your thumbs until lunch. Our neighbors at Headwater Cider will offer hard ciders to taste, and we can direct you to local sites like the Hawley Bog, the Old Town Common, and the Charcoal Kiln. If you’re NOT planning to submit a pudding, feel free to come at noon and join us. The day offers plenty of fun even for non-cooks.

By the way, if you DO plan to enter the contest, bring along a cooler. You may win a food that needs to be preserved.

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Pudding Festival 2014!!

The Pudding Hollow Pudding Festival is a unique event in a lovely New England setting. “A little bit country and a little bit Julia Child,” the festival highlights the many talents found in and around the hamlet of Hawley, Massachusetts—and gives cooks a chance to compete in a deliciously sweet historical fundraiser.

The festival is inspired by a historical event in Hawley. Around 1780, the town held a contest to determine who could create the largest pudding in Hawley. The eventual winner, Abigail Baker of West Hawley, made hasty pudding in a five-pail kettle. She was thereafter known as Pudding Head, and her home is still called Pudding Hollow.

The festival will take place on Sunday, September 28, at the historic Hawley Meeting House way up East Hawley Road in Hawley, Massachusetts. Its centerpiece will be a contest that remembers Abigail Baker. In this case flavor, not size, will characterize the winning pudding.

Here is the Schedule for the Day:

11 a.m. PUDDINGS ARRIVE. This means that if you are entering the contest—and we hope you will consider doing so—you and your pudding should be on site by 11. We are working on a few nearby activities for contestants and their families so that they won’t just be sitting around waiting while the judges sample pudding—although there is no more beautiful place to sit around than Hawley!

There is a $15 per pudding for entering the contest. All entry fees will go directly toward the ongoing restoration and maintenance of the Meeting House.

11:15 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. FARM TOUR at our neighboring dairy (and pudding contest donor!) Sidehill Farm. Sidehill doesn’t usually give tours on Sundays, but its owners have graciously agreed to entertain festival attendees who are waiting for lunch. Meet the cows, tour the business, and don’t forget to pick up some of Sidehill’s delicious yogurt or raw milk. (The farm store will be open at the end of the festival if you want to wait until then to purchase products, but the tour takes place only at 11:15.)

12:15 p.m. LUNCH. We ask a donation for this feast, made by our volunteers, all fabulous home cooks. We will have cider to drink, donated by Clarkdale Fruit Farms, and ice cream for dessert from Bart’s Homemade Ice Cream. Please be as generous as you can!

1:30 p.m.-ish ENTERTAINMENT, PUDDING PARADE, AND JUDGING. Musical director Alice Parker and diva/cook Tinky Weisblat are hard at work crafting an entertainment that will laughingly (and musically) pay tribute to the role of cooking and pudding in our small town’s history.

After the announcement of the winners, audience members will be invited to come onstage to taste pudding. (Caveat emptor—or rather, eater: nibble at your own risk!)

We have designed this site to answer your questions about the rules, our donors, and the Sons & Daughters of Hawley, the historical society that sponsors this event. It will be updated as the date draws closer. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact festival organizer Tinky Weisblat.

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