In the UK, the term ‘pudding’ is incredibly broad, encompassing various types of desserts, cakes and fruit cakes, pies, and certain types of sausage (I’ve been compiling a list). ‘Pudding’ is also a synonym for ‘dessert’ in terms of the (usually)final, (usually)sweet course of a multi-course meal.
One thing that isn’t called ‘pudding’ here is vanilla-flavoured cornstarch-thickened milk-based confections (those are called custard here, even though they don’t contain eggs (egg custard is often called ‘egg custard’ to disambiguate)). I know that ‘pudding’ in the USA typically means the one thing it never means in the UK.
What I don’t know, is what other things are called pudding (or called things that include the term ‘pudding’) in the USA. Please enlighten me!
In the Simpsons episode where Homer becomes morbidly obese so that he can work from home, Mr. Burns refers to an ice cream truck as a “frozen pudding wagon.” I don’t know if this is an old-fashioned term for an ice cream truck or if it was completely made up for the show.
It’s somewhat flexible here in the US. Instant pudding and mixes are called pudding, custard, flan, and other thickish concoctions may get called pudding. We eat Yorkshire Pudding, rice pudding, and bread pudding. Mainly the name pudding in the dish decides it but what is pudding is also in the eye of the beholder, usually from the beholder getting smacked in the face with a pudding filled pie.
The boxes of pudding mix are labeled as being “pudding and pie filling,” suggesting that it’s “pie filling” if it’s in a pie and “pudding” if it’s eaten separately.
It doesn’t have to be vanilla flavored in the US - there are other flavors, most commonly chocolate and butterscotch. There’s rice pudding , which is a similar consistency. Bread pudding isn’t really pudding-like at all. There are cheesecake and pumpkin puddings , which I would describe as “filling without a crust”. I’ve seen tiramisu pudding, which basically skips the ladyfingers. I’ve never heard flan/creme caramel/creme brulee referred to as “pudding”.
I think that’s the only thing that the word “pudding” means when used by itself in the US, except that it needn’t be vanilla-flavored. There’s chocolate pudding, butterscotch pudding, banana pudding, and plenty of other flavors.
We also have (as mentioned by @TriPolar) “bread pudding” and “Yorkshire pudding,” which are their own separate things. But we could argue whether they’re really pudding or just called that, like whether “cheesecake” is really cake.
In the US if you say you are having some pudding, without any other qualifiers like “bread” or “rice,” it always means a custard-like dessert, the default is usually chocolate.
Thanks for that, I’ve just subscribed. As an American in Britain I should find it interesting. I think food works and descriptions are some of the hardest to translate. Mention having biscuits and gravy for breakfast will get you disgusted looks from Brits.
Tapioca pudding is also familiar to Americans, and is the one non-cornstarch version that might, possibly, be referred to without an adjective.
Most Americans will also know rice pudding, bread pudding, and plum pudding, though plum pudding is considered very British, and none of those is particularly common in the US. Culinarily-adventurous Americans might know of Yorkshire pudding and black pudding, but you’re very unlikely to find either in the US. And in a few regions of the US, you’ll find a dish that’s sometimes called corn pudding and sometimes called other things, which is somewhat sweet, but which is usually eaten with the main course, not as a dessert.
Oh, and there are also a few ooze-like monsters in Dungeons and Dragons that are called puddings. I think whoever came up with those was deliberately taking the piss at the British.
So what’s in the middle? It’s called ‘cream’, but every one I ever had was filled with pudding. We don’t call it Boston Pudding Cake though. Desserts aren’t good because of a consistent naming scheme, they’re good because they’re sugary sweet and just thinking about them releases endorphins into our brains. Then something else I was gonna say but all I can think of now is eating some chocolate.
