Indian Pudding

Eugene C. Tarbox started out as a cabinetmaker but decided in his early 40s to put down one set of tools for another and become a restaurateur. In 1929 he opened Gene’s at 69 Water Street in Skowhegan, Maine, a picturesque little town on the banks of the Kennebec River. Tarbox had no way of knowing that the Great Depression would begin that year, too, but his restaurant thrived under his management through the next decade, becoming a well-known stopping place for travelers on U.S. Route 2, the principal east–west route through the central portion of Maine.

At a time when many restaurants were cutting corners as they struggled to stay in business, Tarbox obsessed over the quality of everything served in the establishment that bore his name. All the milk and cream at Gene’s, for example, came from the herd of registered Jersey cows that Tarbox maintained at his own farm. Little wonder that the restaurant’s home-made ice cream was one of the things that made Gene’s, as its newspaper ads said, “A Delightful Place to Dine.”

In 1945 Tarbox brought on Stanley (Stan) T. Tyks, a former manager of the Hotel Oxford in Skowhegan, as a partner in his restaurant. In just a few years Tyks would be voted president of the Maine Restaurant Association, and Tarbox would go on, with his son, to establish another restaurant, the Three G’s, in Skowhegan. (Tarbox retired for good in 1960 and died at age 82 in 1966.)

In 1963 Edmund P. Branch, a veteran restaurant and hotel manager, joined Tyks as a partner in Gene’s, and he oversaw an extensive remodeling the following year. Expo ’67, as the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal was popularly known, offered the prospect of increased business, but it apparently was not to be, with Branch telling a reporter that the much-hyped world’s fair had proved “less than stimulating.”

In 1972 Branch moved to Northeast Harbor, Maine, where he converted the restaurant next to the Kimball Terrace Inn into the Mast and Rudder. That same year Tyks died in his home, at age 58, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and Gene’s restaurant closed soon after that.

The building that housed Gene’s for more than 40 years has since been home to a variety of businesses, including a pub, a pool hall, a clothing shop, and, most recently, Leakos’s Auction House & Gallery.

Print Recipe

Indian Pudding

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Ingredients

• 1 quart milk
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 generous tablespoons cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup molasses

Instructions

1

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8- or 9-inch square baking dish.

2

Scald the milk in the top of a double boiler. Combine the sugar, cornmeal, cinnamon, salt, egg, and molasses and pour this mixture into the hot milk, stirring or whisking constantly; break up any lumps.

3

When the mixture thickens (after 10 minutes or so), turn it into the buttered baking dish. Bake 3 hours, or until pudding is set.

Notes

Indian Pudding may be served warm, cold, or at room temperature.