Day 215/365: Friday's Unscientific Poll: The temperature of pudding

[nanila]

This poll has been brought to you by a pointlessly heated lunchtime argument at work.

Poll #20301 The temperature of pudding

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

I prefer my puddings to be:

View Answers

Base ingredient hot, accompaniment cold (example: hot apple pie and cold ice cream)
33 (66.0%)

Base ingredient cold, accompaniment hot (example: cold fruit and hot chocolate sauce/fondue)
19 (38.0%)

All cold (example: big bowl of sorbet)
32 (64.0%)

All hot (example: sticky toffee pudding and custard)
32 (64.0%)

Comments

[redsixwing]

I have ticked all four, which I suppose means "extant."

[nanila]

I take it as "PUDDING YES NOW GIVE ME", which sums up my feelings on the matter as well. :D

[alexseanchai]

...most of those things are not pudding. </USAian>

[nanila]

As stated at the beginning, this poll was based on a conversation at my work, which is located in the UK, between my work colleagues and me, who are either from the UK or have been naturalised. Do you think we'd code-switch to US English for said discussion?

[white_hart]

I’m not sure about cold base and hot accompaniment, but wouldn’t say no to any of the others, though my actual preference changed depending on the season.

[gominokouhai]

Big bowl of iced cream liberally drizzled with hot fudge sauce.

[alatefeline]

As a side note, I answered this question as if it said 'what is the correct temperature for dessert', as my take on cross-Atlantic mutual confusion is that US dessert is approximately UK pudding. Pudding to me is a specific, custardy, gelatinous substance that comes in little cups or bowls, and is neither hot nor cold but vaguely, almost imperceptibly cool. Heheheh.

[alexseanchai]

^

Usually comes out of boxes labeled JELL-O at that.

[cmcmck]

What about 'no preference'? I don't mind any of those combos!

[nanila]

Go ahead and tick all the boxes! I would! :D

[azurelunatic]

When Purple and I visit the pastrami place, I insist on splitting a bread pudding and a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. For some reason the menu does not suggest the combination! The bread pudding comes with whipped cream and caramel sauce.

[alatefeline]

*drool*

[antisoppist]

I said hot with cold but on consideration, I like the hot thing to warm up the cold thing enough that it isn't too horribly cold - e.g. apple crumble with melted ice cream - so possibly what I want is hot with lukewarm, but I don't like custard so I didn't pick that.

[redsixwing]

Oooh. Yum. :D

[hilarita]

Depends entirely on the time of year.

[nanila]

Yeah, now is not the time for sticky toffee pudding!

[redbird]

I like some desserts that are a single warm or hot thing, like a recently baked cookie that's still above room temperature, but I can't think of a hot base with hot sauce that I like.

I am now regretting, a little, the hot fudge sundae I didn't get today. (It was 31 degrees and sunny, and then I heard thunder, and all in all decided I didn't feel like walking half a kilometer each way in the heat to get to the place that makes the really good hot fudge sauce. So I did a quick errand, then went home and had a plain bowl of ice cream.

[nanila]

What about "self-saucing" desserts, like a chocolate souffle? Would that count as a hot base with a hot sauce?

Mmm, hot fudge sundae!

[hamsterwoman]

I said "all hot" or "all cold" -- I really do love both, including mixtures of several cold things (ice cream/sorbet with alcohol or cold berries or whipped cream) or several hot things (bread pudding with heated-up sauce drizzled over the top). Upon reflection, though, I think it's possible that my objections to things like pie a la mode or ice cream topped with hot fudge are at least as much to the mixture of textures than temperatures... (And by "objections" I mean I would not assemble such a dessert myself, and would choose to order something different given the option, but I will still happily eat pie a la mode if it's put in front of me, because pie!)

Like, I'm actually good with hot coffee with ice cream floating in it, or creme brulee which tends to have a hot/cold gradient.

And also fried bananas with ice cream, which does not meet either my "consistent temperature" OR my secondary "consistent texture" consideration, so IDK what give, but they're just delicious.

[nanila]

I'm actually good with hot coffee with ice cream floating in it,

Oh, I LOVE affogato! If it's on the menu, I will always order that, because it combines having a little after-dinner espresso with having pudding and the combination is excellent.

Yay, fried bananas with ice cream! (I would pour a shot of rum over that...)

[niqaeli]

...I prefer my pudding to be pudding and not just any damn sweet thing?? So, you know. Something cold of a custardy texture. /pointlessly American snark

[crystalpyramid]

So is all dessert in fact pudding or are there desserts that aren't? What does pudding mean? This is fascinating, I hadn't realized this usage difference existed.

[ankaret]

I can only speak for the bit of the UK I grew up in, but...

Anything sweet that is served at the end of a meal is called pudding if you're slightly more posh, or sweet if you're slightly less posh, or dessert if you're in a restaurant. (Dessert seems to be coming into use more generally)

HOWEVER just to confuse everyone, pudding used to mean anything boiled or steamed in a cloth, so you can also have steak and kidney pudding or bacon pudding, which are meat wrapped in flour and suet... not quite pastry. These are eaten as a main course, so you could eat steak and kidney pudding followed by ice cream or apple crumble or a banana, which would also be pudding but not quite in the same way.

[rmc28]

Also lunchtime today was a particularly pointless time for anything to be heated, even metaphorically.

- signed, the person who spent lunchtime in the giant meeting room which is noticeably cooler than the rest of the building, and frequently empty. With my feet up and a book.

[ironed_orchid]

All of the above, but much depends on the weather/season.

[gwendraith]

Pudding, any type of pudding for me :)

[angrboda]

All of the above. I prefer my puddings to be... plentiful.

(From the perspective of a Danish person being introduced to British puddings for the first time, I was a bit puzzled by the idea that a pudding could be anything other than cold. We don't really have warm puddings in Denmark. Nearly 10 years later, I've absolutely come round to the idea. Quite partial to a sticky toffee pudding, actually.)

[liseuse]

I ticked all hot but only because it was closer to my actual ideal of 'pudding but with no accompaniment'. If I'm eating apple pie, I want it warm but I don't want anything with it. The only thing I really put on ice cream is crushed digestive biscuits or ginger nuts. I do enjoy a bowl of custard on its own, but the only addition I would think of might be a sliced banana. (I don't enjoy mixing foods, so I eat a piece of carrot and then a potato and then some broccoli, I will have none of this 'fork with carrot and potato and broccoli, all eaten at once' thing. This does not apply to foods which are intended to be mixed-up - like lasagna, or stew, or stir fry.)

[conuly]

I suppose I prefer my pudding to be pudding, and my dessert to be sweet stuff, and lots of it.

[antisoppist]

OK someone is going to have to explain what American pudding means now! At the minute I'm getting the impression that it is jelly. I suppose this would solve the problem of what Americans call jelly when they use the word jelly for what we call jam.

FWIW I use "pudding" to refer to the sweet course of a main meal so "What's for pudding?" "Fruit" is a perfectly reasonable conversation in my house. Sometimes pudding is ice cream, sometimes pudding might be apple crumble or lemon tart and sometimes it is an actual pudding, a dome-shaped thing steamed in a pudding basin, e.g. Sussex pond pudding or Christmas pudding.

[ankaret]

I'm surprised the office discussion didn't break into an armed standoff between people who say 'pudding' and people who say 'sweet'.

[ankaret]

I sometimes miss social nuances, particularly cross culturally, so I'm just checking - you guys 'correcting' the use of pudding to mean 'any sweet course served at the end of a meal' are teasing nanila about her ability to code-switch, right? You weren't actually expecting a UK lab full of scientists from various backgrounds to use US English when arguing about hot or cold food choices?

I've hung out in corners of academia that default to Singapore or Hong Kong English, but to my shame I can't remember what any of them said about pudding.

[conuly]

I think one of us legit may have been surprised, but yeah, I don't think any of us is seriously correcting. Language variation is a beautiful thing.

[fred_mouse]

I default to 'pudding is a subset of dessert'. By which I interpret it to be a dense & moist cake-like dessert. Which is best eaten hot.

I would guess it isn't one of the UK usages that became common here, unlike 'tea' as the evening meal.

[ironed_orchid]

I grew up in Aus with tea followed by pudding. This may be because my parents are from NZ and also both their families had a mix of working class and middle class norms.

[silveradept]

I generally like cold things more than hot, at least based on the examples. Even if the accompanying ingredient were hot, like a sauce or drizzle, I tend to wait until it has chilled and solidified some before consuming it.