May 22nd is the day we recognize National Vanilla Pudding Day. Enjoy it with a delicious dish of cold, creamy vanilla pudding.
The puddings we enjoy as desserts today are not what was commonly known as pudding at ancient dinner tables. Most medieval puddings were meat based and seasoned with herbs and spices. Even sweetened, they were usually served hot. Toward the end of the 18th century, puddings were more likely made from a grains or day old bread with nuts, fruit or meats. These puddings were used to stretch meals for a large family.
The creamy pudding we are more familiar with today is related to custard, minus the eggs.
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but spouses who are chemists are the inventor. When you are Alfred Bird and your wife is allergic to eggs, that is very true. In 1837, Bird invented an egg-free custard powder using flavored cornstarch.
The earliest packaged pudding in the United States was marketed by My-T-Fine in 1918. This and other puddings like them still required cooking on the stove. The instant version came along in the mid-1940s. On its own or as an ingredient in a larger recipe, pudding can be enjoyed in a variety of flavors.
- The Fortress hotel in Galle, Sri Lanka, is charging $14,500 a serving of the world’s most expensive pudding, which is called “The Fortress Stilt Fisherman Indulgence”.
- Hasty pudding, originally a British dish, could be made on very short notice. Ingredients vary, but it was basically a sweetened porridge made from flour, tapioca or oatmeal and milk. The term originated in the late 16th century.
- In Colonial America cornmeal was cheaper and more readily available, so here, Hasty Pudding was a cornmeal mush (cornmeal added to boiling water and cooked) with molasses, honey, brown sugar or maple syrup and milk.
- There are both savory and dessert versions of this dish.
- Meat pudding would be a savory example of a pudding dish.
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