Raisins are the best part.
I am fairly certain that is the most unreasonable thing that has ever been said on the Straight Dope.
I’m honored.
Seriously, though - I love the raisins in bread pudding. My wife hates them, which means I rarely get to have bread pudding with raisins.
What reasonable person doesn’t love bread pudding!?
No, because you either like it (overall) or you don’t.
If you eat it, then chances are, you like it. If you didn’t like it, then you wouldn’t ever eat it (regardless of how it was made or what kind it was, etc).
Fresh out of the oven and covered in vanilla sauce (Devonshire custard). :o
Yes , I like bread pudding but I really can’t bread anymore more . I like cornbread pudding too with vanilla ice cream on the top !
I love bread pudding, with raisins or without. Sometimes I make it with Craisins or slices of apple.
A couple of the restaurants at Walt Disney World’s Polynesian Resort serve a spectacularly rich version, 'Ohana Bread Pudding with Bananas Foster Sauce, a la mode: Recipe: 'Ohana Bread Pudding | the disney food blog
I don’t really care for it. If I want that sort of flavor, I’d rather have a good cinnamon roll or coffee cake, not dressed up leftovers* as dessert. That said, I’ve been low-carbing off and on for what feels like centuries, so bread pudding just doesn’t seem like a food at all (iow, if I’m going to egregiously gorge on carbs, it’s going to be a loaded baked potato or a really awesome sandwich, not straight starch mixed with other starch and two sugars 
)
(*I do fully enjoy savory bread pudding, aka turkey dressing, once a year. 
)
Edit: I see some rather divisive comments about raisins. Plumped-up raisins are a saving grace for foods like bread pudding and cinnamon rolls.
Much to my surprise the first time I had it, Gordon Biersch has some of the best chain restaurant bread pudding in existence (IMHO). I’ve had it a few times since; it does not appear to be a fluke.
Not all bread pudding tastes like a cinnamon roll or coffee cake. New Orleans has its own versions that the vast majority of people love. It typically has a bourbon or rum sauce to go with it that is exquisite when prepared correctly. It is definitely distinctive tasting whether you like it or not and tastes nothing like a Cinnabon or coffee cake. The hotel I used to work in made a famous version that I used to be sent to serve to VIP’s at high-end fund raisers and, judging by people’s reactions, they really, really liked it.
I should have asked for the full recipe or saw the whole process of it being made - only the end result and it was outstanding. There were other establishments that also claimed the title of best bread pudding and I had those too. It was kind of hard to tell because they were all so excellent. There wasn’t anything “leftover” about them.
Here are some versions:
I’m cool with that. 
My pear tree produces prodigious amounts of fruit about every other year. I don’t much care for canned pears, so after I’ve had my fill of fresh ones, I dehydrate the rest. Dried pears are addictive, and one of my favorite things to do with them is to chop and add them to a bread pudding. I’ll bet you’d like that version, too. 
No, which is funny, because I like french toast, and to me, bread pudding is just french toast casserole. I think it’s a textural thing.
StG
I totally hear what you are saying…however…the first time I spent Christmas morn
ing at my inlaws in NOLA I was told I made that and the cheese grits better than anyone. Pretty good for a know-nothing Yank, I guess, but I felt like I was just polishing a turd.
Oh, hell, yeah; every version is dy-no-mite!
Hey, you got some? I could send you an address. You know, take it off yer hands for you.
Yeah, I can see that. But the savory bread puddings I make usually have a lot of eggs and cheese and sometimes greens like spinach or kale, which I don’t associate with stuffing (I guess traditional Thanksgiving stuffing has eggs, but savory bread pudding tends to be more eggy). Stuffing seems to me to be sort of looser or more crumbly, while a savory bread pudding is more dense. YMMV, and apparently it does.
As far as whether the term “pudding” can only be applied to desserts, generally I agree, but I don’t know what else to call a dense egg-and-bread thing that’s not sweet and not stuffing. Plus, I only learned to make them from Mark Bittman, and that’s what he calls them. Also, as a vegetarian, I want it to be known that you can have your pudding even if you don’t eat your meat.
“Bread pudding” is really more of a breakfast food than a dessert, for me.
Allow me to clarify:
I grew up in a Southern California suburb during the 60s, as one of ten children of a SAHM and a working-class dad. My parents were not Plains Indians, but the concept of using “every part of the buffalo” cerrtainly resonated with them. I’m unsure if Mom ever dealt with the stereotype of children who refused to eat the heels of a loaf of bread, or if she was simply taking no chances, but on the top of our refrigerator was a large brown-paper grocery store bag, and into this bag would go the aforementioned heels. In the several weeks that it took to fill the bag, those crusts of bread staled up nicely.
Once the bag was full, Mom would wait for the next Saturday morning. Into a large pot, she would put a quart or two of milk, a cup of sugar, a tablespoon of vanilla extract, and half a pound of raisins. Then she would break the stale bread crusts into the milk as she stirred and heated it. That would be our breakfast for Saturday morning, as well as our mid-morning snack.
Bread-and-milk was not as popular with some of my youngerr siblings. I suspect this is because, as the older ones aged and moved out, it took longer and longer for the remaining kids to finish off a batch.
So while I realize that our breakfast wasn’t bread pudding, per se, these days, it’s hardly ever my dessert choice when I see it in the menu.
I love bread pudding, with nuts and fresh and dried fruit. Bread pudding with golden sultanas, chopped hazelnuts and fresh black cherries, yumm. When we have fresh cherries, I prefer to make clafoutis, but not all the fam likes that (why, I have no idea!), so a cherry bread pudding is a reasonable compromise.
(my emphasis)
:eek: sounds more like a recipe for mycelium pudding.
Interesting. Life-long New Orleanian … here to say that bread pudding is a well-loved local classic. Lots of people make it lots of different ways, it’s true. But around here, bread pudding with raisins is the definitive version. Others’ MMV, it seems.
Hmmm…“savory bread pudding”…“Mark Bittman”…
OH! You mean strata!
I’m mainly seen strata as a breakfast dish at country inns and B&Bs. The host can cook the ham and eggs and toast (and mushrooms, peppers, onions, whatever) all together in one big casserole, and save the trouble of making individual dishes.