I spent this past summer as a volunteer at the New Hampshire Food Bank in Manchester, New Hampshire. This opportunity came about courtesy of the economy. In May, the company I worked for had a reduction in work force, and, along with many others, I lost my job. I went home numb, in shock that this had happened to me. First reaction: I had to get a job, as quickly as possible, to pay the bills and get back into the work force.  For several days, that was my sole focus, looking for work, notifying my contacts, searching for job openings. At the end of each search, I came away drained, frustrated and angry, wondering if I’d ever get another job. This searching ate at me constantly, and worse, was spilling over into my everyday life.

It was my partner who suggested that I spend some time volunteering, as I could help other people rather than focus on me, dealing with the job loss. I decided to volunteer at the New Hampshire Food Bank; I led some company food drives in the past, bringing in donations and I was quite familiar with their work. I did not know how powerful an impact this volunteering would have on me.

In New England, Christmas didn’t become an important holiday until about the middle of the nineteenth century. The Puritans didn’t like it. In time, they became less strict about some of their beliefs, but not their hostility to Christmas. But the Puritans and their descendants weren’t nearly as consistent as they liked to think they were. In the eighteenth century, when Thanksgiving began to develop as the most important regional holiday, New Englanders began sneaking Christmas in by the back door by featuring traditional English Christmas foods in their Thanksgiving feasts. That’s how turkey became the centerpiece of the American Thanksgiving dinner. It’s also how several traditional English Christmas desserts like mince pie and plum pudding found their way onto the festive New England board. The recipe we’re going to tell you about in this column, for “Plumb Cake,” is an example of an English treat that became popular in New England for Thanksgiving and, later on, for Christmas.