I’m certainly aware of the British foodstuffs called pudding, but in my neck of the woods, they don’t count. (LOVE me some blood pudding, though!)
Pudding is, as has been said, a sweet dish thickened with starch. It may also have eggs in it, but it doesn’t rely on eggs for the thickening as custard does. Bread, rice and tapioca puddings are puddings, but always have their modifier in the name.
Although, in reality, served a dish of glop or a donut with stuff in the middle, I’m not always sure whether it’s custard or pudding.
So is rice. Jell-O Tapioca used to also come in three actual flavors until at least the 60s: chocolate, vanilla, and orange-coconut. I can see what you’re trying to say–for whatever reason, tapioca is thought of more as a “flavor” (even though it has little flavor of its own) while “rice” is just a different type of pudding. I suppose this is because the consistency of tapioca pudding is closer to standard pudding than rice pudding is to standard pudding?
Rice pudding is short grain white ‘pudding’ rice mixed with sugar and milk, then baked - the end result being a something between porridge and risotto in texture (and obviously sweet to taste).
Tapioca pudding is the same idea, but made with tapioca pearls - ending up looking like milky frogspawn, and despised of people who grew up being served this as children for school dinners.
Semolina pudding likewise - made with coarse semolina and milk, ending up as a variably sloppy sort of doughy stuff.
All of these would be served hot, with a big spoonful of raspberry jam, golden syrup or honey.
“Pudding” covers a multitude of sins, for me. Basically, a soft, undifferentiated, gelatinous dish - could be main dish or could be a desert - that can be eaten with a spoon. May be hot or chilled.
Most often, I think of ‘pudding’ as a daiy-based creamy desert, though I’m fully aware that folks in the UK make some rather odd-sounding (to my ears) main dish puddings.
I recognize the difference, but not everybody cares. Also, pudding is more generic than custard, which I take to mean egg custard, or a reasonable facsimile, while pudding could be almost anything according to some. Look at the Wiki on pudding, they end up linking to scrapple and polenta as puddings. Sure they start as cornmeal mush, but they don’t end up resembling what I would call pudding.
The first thing I think of is Bill Cosby’s stuff - this is “pudding” to me, absent modifiers or context.
Rice pudding and tapioca pudding are usually specifically called out, but in common usage (thanks to Jello’s marketing, perhaps) can be lumped in with vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, and whatever other flavors they have in little cups on the grocery store shelf.
Bread pudding is a yummy dessert that restaurants often serve, but it’s very rare to hear it referred to simply as “pudding.”
My church growing up served “plum pudding” at their annual advent dinner, but it was basically a raisin cake with yellow sauce on top. It was good, but I believe it was a very inaccurate imitation of the traditional version of the dish.
I recently made Spotted Dog (per the recipe in this book). The most interesting part was obtaining suet - the local grocery store butcher had one guy on duty who knew what it was, and he proceeded to simply give me some. The resulting concoction was quite good, but based on written descriptions I think it was more dry than it was supposed to be; having no experience for comparison, I’m not certain. I’m eager to try it again. Anyway, this sort of thing certainly comes to my mind now in association with the term “pudding”, but when discussing it with others I have to clarify it somehow or they’ll probably be thinking of Bill Cosby.
Well, sure. This wouldn’t be much of a poll if everybody cared or didn’t. You can make a reasonable argument that a runny custard is some subset of “pudding,” but in my usage, they’re distinct. A pudding has a different texture than a custard. If I want custard, and get pudding, I’m disappointed. Just like when I order “barbecue” and I get something that’s been cooked in an oven and doused in barbecue sauce. Yeah, not everyone cares, but I do.
I was under the impression that most “tapioca pudding” in the US was actually just the same stuff as vanilla pudding, but with lumps of whatever starch other puddings use, and possibly some artificial flavor, not true tapioca at all. That would put it in a different sort of category from rice pudding, which always is really made with rice.
Quoth WhyNot:
Donut filling is usually listed as “custard”, but I think it’s generally actually pudding. It never seems to be eggy at all. Likewise, of course, frozen custard is usually non-eggy soft serve ice cream.
Generic “pudding” is usually thickened with cornstarch in the US. Tapioca pudding does have tapioca in it, although sometimes it may be a mix of tapioca and starch, with tapioca being the primary binding ingredient and cornstarch and/or modified food starch providing additional body.
In my experience, as Chronos says, it’s often called custard (although the Polish bakeries around my house do call it “pudding” sometimes), but it’s a mix of eggs and starch, probably based on French Pastry Cream. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a pure custard in a donut.
This pretty much covers it for me, except that Chronos left out banana pudding from the “usual” flavors–perhaps it’s less common outside the southern states, but it’s everywhere here.
I am familiar with the various British usages, and have prepared both Yorkshire pudding and Christmas pudding (both of which I found tasty), but when I encounter the word “pudding” without context, I think of the creamy, dairy kind, served chilled.
I already understood this British usage. Actually, if I’m not mistaken, the “meat” here isn’t necessarily “meat” in the specific sense of “animal flesh” but just “meat” in the general sense of “solid food” or “a meal.”
Either way, if I hadn’t I think it would make perfect sense in the American meaning. The kid wants pudding (for dessert, presumably) and he can’t get it until he’s eaten meat. It seems oddly specific, but perhaps appropriately surreal or absurd in the context of a Pink Floyd lyric.
An American not familiar with the British usage would probably just assume that pudding was what the family was having for dessert that night. It’d be about the same as “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any ice cream”, or “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pie”. Even if not every dessert is pudding, it’s still a perfectly reasonable and normal thing to have for dessert.
(LOVE me some blood pudding, though!)