What Happened in Pudding Lane? Quiz

Answer: The Great Fire of London started.

It has long been accepted that the Great Fire of London started on that date, in the bakery of Thomas Farriner, whose property was in Pudding Lane. It was reported in 2016 that modern research had placed the actual site of the fire's beginning in nearby Monument Street, though it would have been in Pudding Lane in 1666.

Pepys, whose diary gave a first-hand record of the Great Fire, lived from 1633 until 1703. He kept his most well-known diary between 1660 and 1669. Wren, the great architect who was given the task of rebuilding London (especially its churches) after the fire, lived from 1632 until 1723. Yorkshire pudding is said to have originated in Yorkshire some time in the 1730s.

Answer: The eating

The literal meaning of "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" was that you had to eat the pudding to know if it was any good. Expanding on that it came to be applied to other enterprises, and to mean that only by trying something could you judge its worth. The shortened version, "the proof is in the pudding" came into use in the 1920s, with essentially the same meaning.

Answer: Yorkshire pudding

In this context, the child has asked "What's for dessert?" and would be most unhappy to learn that he was getting a savoury dish usually served with the Sunday roast! Any sweet dish would fit the description of "pudding" in this case. Eve's pudding is a dessert made from apples and sponge cake, while banoffee pie is a particularly sweet and sticky treat made from bananas, toffee and condensed milk.

Answer: Kissed them

The rhyme continued:

"Kissed the girls and made them cry,
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away."

Various theories about the rhyme have linked Georgie Porgie to different English noblemen and kings. One harkened back to the Great Fire of London and its beginning in Pudding Lane and supposed end at Pye Corner. None have been proved to be the true origin of the rhyme.

Answer: Murder, She Baked

The "Murder, She Baked" series, from 2015 and 2016, also included "A Peach Cobbler Mystery", "A Deadly Recipe" and "A Chocolate Chip Cookie Mystery". Sweeney played the owner of a bakery who somehow found herself mixed up in murders and helping the handsome local detective (played by Cameron Mathison) as he tried to solve them.

The film involving plum pudding was naturally set just before Christmas.

Answer: Mark Twain

Wilson, the title character of "The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson" (1893) got his nickname (a corruption of "puddinghead") due to a particularly foolish comment he made when he first arrived in town. The tale itself was one of Twain's most complex and somber novels, involving slavery and racial tensions. Pudd'nhead was portrayed in a 1916 movie version by Theodore Roberts, and in a 1984 television adaptation by Ken Howard.

Answer: A dormitory room at Harvard College

According to the Hasty Pudding website, the Club was founded by a group of juniors in the room of one Nymphas Hatch. One of the original provisions of the charter of the social club was that the members must take it in turn, alphabetically, to provide a pot of hasty pudding for each meeting.

The reason for this was to supplement the food provided to students by the college at the time, which was said to be unappetizing.

Answer: Silver sixpence

Luck and wealth were meant to be the lot of whichever member of the family found the sixpence in their helping of pudding on Christmas Day. It is said that some families have used the same sixpence for many years, as must certainly be the case so many years after that coin ceased to be in circulation.

A brass farthing was a term for something of very little value, and wouldn't be lucky and finding a wishbone in a pudding might have been dangerous!

Answer: Haggis

The line is from "Address to a Haggis", the first verse of which goes:

"Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o'a grace
As lang's my arm."

The poem is traditionally recited at Burns Night dinners after the haggis has been piped in to the room.

Answer: It escaped serious damage.

Although the Blitz of 1940-41 and the later V-bomb attacks caused terrible damage to much of London, Pudding Lane, the seat of the earlier fire, did not suffer a great deal of damage. The Monument suffered minor damage, but was not destroyed.