Pudding

Lore & Background

The word pudding dates to the 13th century, originally referring to entrails or stomach of an animal stuffed with meat, offal, suet, oatmeal, and seasonings. By the 1500s, the term also described the contents of a person's stomach, especially when pierced with a sword in battle. The modern usage for dessert evolved from an earlier almost exclusive use for savoury dishes made by encasing liquid ingredients and steaming or boiling them, similar to sausage-making. Notable surviving savoury examples include black pudding and haggis.

Reader's Guide

Pudding's significance lies in its dual identity as both a savoury staple and a sweet dessert, reflecting centuries of culinary evolution. In the UK and Commonwealth, savoury puddings like steak and kidney pudding and Yorkshire pudding remain traditional dishes, while sweet puddings such as Christmas pudding and sticky toffee pudding are iconic desserts. In North America, pudding became primarily a creamy, milk-based dessert, often commercially produced with thickeners like cornstarch or gelatin. The invention of the pudding cloth in the 17th century revolutionized pudding-making by replacing animal guts as casings, allowing puddings to become a regular part of daily fare across social classes. The proverb 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' dates to at least the 14th century, underscoring the dish's cultural resonance.

Did You Know?

• One of the first documented mentions of pudding appears in Homer's Odyssey, describing a blood pudding roasted in a pig's stomach.
• In the United Kingdom, 'pudding' is often used as a synonym for the dessert course of a meal.
• The pudding cloth, first mentioned in a 1617 recipe for Cambridge pudding, allowed puddings to be made without animal guts.
• An early documented recipe for a pudding called asida appears in a 10th-century Arabic cookbook.