Unrecognizable anywhere but in New England, Indian pudding is a traditional sweetened stove-top Thanksgiving dessert that was brought over from the 17-century English colonists in the original form known as hasty pudding. Traditional Indian pudding is a combination of cornmeal, water, molasses, butter, and eggs, along with available spices, fruits, and nuts.

Cornmeal was abundant for the early settlers and made a suitable base, while molasses was used as a sweetener due to the massive amounts of rum being produced at the time. The pudding is slowly cooked over a low flame for the smoothest possible consistency, similar to the way New England kitchen stoves radiated heat long after the cooking was done, and it can be left warm, frozen, fried, or served with a scoop of ice cream.