Pudding and dessert

[jackal10]

When did "Pudding" come to mean a sweet course at the end of the meal in UK English, as in "What's for pud"? It seems to be a comparatively recent, maybe early 20th century, usage.

Dr Samuel Johnson (1755) defines "Pudding Time" as The time of dinner, pudding being formerly the dish first eaten

The etymology of pudding seems to be from c.1305, "a kind of sausage: the stomach or one of the entrails of a pig, sheep, etc., stuffed with minced meat, suet, seasoning, boiled and kept till needed," perhaps from a W.Gmc. stem *pud- "to swell" , and hence boudin. Hot and boiled, maybe but extended to say Summer Pudding (cold and uncooked) and Yorkshire pudding (baked).

If not pudding, then what is the sweet course called? Not sweet, which is a candy (eg "Have a sweet").

Are hot and cold sweet courses called differently - can pudding include icecream or fruit salad (cold and uncooked)?

Similarly "dessert" (1600), from M.Fr. dessert (1539) "last course," lit. "removal of what has been served," from desservir "clear the table," lit. "un-serve," from des- "remove, undo" + O.Fr. servir "to serve."

Can the dessert course include cheese and coffee or equivalent? I believe it can, but not other savouries, or is coffee plus sweetmeats or petit four a seperate course?

Puzzled...

Edited January 23, 2009 by jackal10 (log)

[Adam Balic]

"The use of the word dessert as applied to the pudding course is not confined to

America, but prevails to some extent in Scotland as well."

This quote comes from 1883, so it implies that in England it was more usual practice to refer to the last sweet course in a meal as "pudding". During the 19th century there is the shift in the order of service which ends up will the modern meal structure (sweet course at the end of the meal). Prior to this it was also possible to have sweet dishes served along side savoury, although the last course was dominated by sweet dishes.

As pudding at this period, and before, covers a whole range of dishes that might not be considered a "pudding" now (see modern US English definition of "pudding") and it usual to refer to the sweet dish (served at any point in the meal) as pudding.

So you can't refer to a sweet course as "pudding" unless you have an exclusive sweet course.