Just Desserts

I once knew a lovely lady who introduced me to the decadent habit of ordering pudding before the main course in restaurants. This was because she hated the frustration of being too full for dessert when this was always the best part of any meal!

So this month I'm looking at the history behind those two lovely words, pudding and dessert. It was all rather offputting, I'm afraid. Back in the 14th century, pudding was a kind of sausage, meat stuffed into the stomach of a pig or sheep. Over the centuries it evolved to describe any food boiled or steamed in a sack such as the traditional British steamed pudding we all love (or is that just me?).

Dessert comes from the French word desservir, meaning 'to clear the table', so dessert represented the end of the meal before everything was cleared away. No wonder waiters frown when I ask for dessert before anything else!

Incidentally, did you know that cake (another of my favourites) was originally a flat, round loaf of bread and was considered a poor man's food?