One of my biggest bugbears is the word ‘dessert’ (when people mean ‘pudding’). It’s not a class issue, it’s not a preference, it’s simply incorrect. It’s a mistake. It’s WRONG! Pudding is not dessert, and dessert is not pudding.
This is not going to be a long blog post as, quite frankly, there is very little to say on the matter as in this instant it is an open/shut case. I just had to get this off my chest and into the ether for the poor, misguided souls who are going about thinking they are being sophisticated by using the term ‘dessert’.
Dessert was/is the fruit course. It came after pudding and was often eaten (if available) with dessert cutlery. These would be a very small, kind of fiddly, fork and knife that would aid in removing the skin from an apple, a plum and the like.
This is a 'dessert'
Pudding is the pudding. It’s the rhubarb crumble, it’s the lemon meringue pie, the chocolate cheesecake. That is pudding.
This is a 'pudding'.
Desserts were so called as it came once the table had been ‘deserted’ of the other accoutrements. This course began to vanish after the Edwardian times (probably due to the wars, I would guess) and the term ‘dessert’ kind of hung around like an unwanted guest at a party, before it unashamedly assaulted the sweet course and beguiled everyone into calling said sweet course ‘dessert’.
Restaurants, cafés, books, people who should know better, all over the world persist in calling my favourite course by the wrong name and it really, really winds me up as they (especially restaurants) think they are being more sophisticated by using a word of French derivation, rather than an admittedly clumpy Middle English one.
So please from now on can we all go about calling fruit ‘dessert’ and the course that we eat after the main, ‘pudding’.
Tags: cutlery, dessert, dining etiquette, Edwardian, etiquette, fruit, manners, pudding, table manners, UK, USA
Interesting post, William. I didn’t know about the distinction between pudding and dessert but I always used the former anyway because it sounds more decadent. Pudding evokes apple pie, rhubarb crumble and spotted dick, whereas dessert brings to mind something a lot more sensible and healthy – fruit, for example!
I think your stance is a bit on the firm side and I would like to respectfully disagree unless of course this only refers to Brits, where in fact the term is (almost)solely used. It is a throw back to distinctions of class where pudding was a very non-U word, and dessert a very U word, according to some very reliable sources. As good a distinction as any would be that pudding requires two implements always whereas dessert, the category to which pudding does belong, does not. Changing class distinctions has always been a challenge and seems to remain so.
And not to put too fine a point on it, here is a link to some British research.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/food/puddings.htm
By the way, to Brian Walters, my above remarks were not directed at you, but rather at the blog scribe, my friend, Mr. H.
Funniest piece I’ve read all day. Your government is sinking, the media drowning in its own filth, yet the commoners are getting steamed up about whether a pudding is also a dessert. Priceless!
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Hi William,
I have been introduced to your website by your friend James and have found it very interesting and entertaining. After reading this article on Pudding vs Dessert I was hoping to propose a question of my own – What are your thoughts on the words “Dinner”, “Supper” and “Tea”? Also, your opinion of “Brunch” as a meal?
Hope to hear from you soon.
Holly
Dear Holly,
Dinner is the evening meal (usually the person’s main meal). Tea comes around 4pm (5pm in Royal Household) and is scones, cakes and sandwiches. Supper used to be a very light meal (usually bread and jam) before bed-time, thus AFTER dinner, but is now mainly used to refer to an informal dinner. So if you put out the starched white napkins for guests, that would be a dinner party. If you were giving them quality paper napkins and sitting round the dinner table, that would be dinner.
So – breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner(/supper).
Brunch is fine, but usually on the weekends and around 11am.
Hope this helps.
William
William thank you, when I went onto the internet for an answer to this question I did not expect to find one! It is not hugely important in the scheme of things, I know but I am always a little irritated by the term ‘dessert’ because it carries conatations of something superior than the ‘delightful’ puddings I serve to my family and friends!
Please also tell me that my insistence upon calling our main living room a ‘living room’ and not a ‘lounge’ ‘front room’ ‘sitting room’(albeit that is my next choice) or ‘salon’ is also correct and you will have made my day!
You can have a drawing room so long a you have a sitting from which to withdraw into the drawing room! Hope this makes sense. Well done!!
glassware…
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