Tap Tap Tapioca

Apparently I’m on a crusade to redeem the foods people love to hate. A few days ago I was singing the praises of the disrespected brussels sprout, and today I’m lauding the humble tapioca pudding, a dish many love and an equal number passionately detest.

Recruiting people for Team Brussels Sprout is, believe it or not, a lot easier than convincing people to embrace tapioca pudding. See, with brussels sprouts, you just need to cook them properly and get the flavor right. But with tapioca, you’re not up against flavor (tapioca doesn’t really have any); you’re up against texture.

I’m convinced there is a contingent of people out there who are “texture eaters.” Just like there are “supertasters,” who are acutely aware of flavors the average person cannot detect, these “supersensers” are extremely sensitive to a food’s texture. Most people I’ve met who would fall into this category don’t like oatmeal, oysters, sushi, or even yogurt — anything that might feel slippery, strange or lumpy on the tongue.

For these people, or ones approaching that level of sensitivity, tapioca pudding provides the ultimate ick factor: it’s slippery, lumpy and unusual. The tapioca balls, which are small balls of dried cassava starch, become jelly-like when cooked in the custard mixture. So not only do you have the slickness of the custard itself; you also have a bunch of slippery little buggers floating around in there.

So for the supersenser types out there…I’m sorry to say, there’s not much I can do to win you over. But for the rest of you, I’ll say this: tapioca pudding is often butchered by cafeterias and mess halls, whose cooks turn out gloppy, slimy, icky pots of so-called “tapioca pudding.” If this is your only experience with tapioca pudding, give it another chance.

This Regan Daley recipe dresses up tapioca pudding with a vanilla bean and is truly delicious — nothing like the jiggly mess my elementary school cafeteria used to throw at us. It’s sophisticated and yet totally comforting, a perfect winter treat. And if I haven’t won you over in my “scorned foods” crusade…all is I can say is, hey, I tried, right?

Note: This is my submission to this month’s Sugar High Friday — “The Proof is in the Pudding” — and my first SHF ever. Given the title of my blog, how could I not participate? If your interested in knowing the history of pudding…I have an oh-so-nerdy write-up here.

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Speaking of Pudding…

When you think of controversial words in the foodie lexicon, pudding probably isn’t one of them. Foie gras and trans fat? Sure. Pudding? Not so much.

But in my circle of friends, the term sparked a postprandial debate that – I think we all can agree –probably lasted too long. It all started one night when my South African friend Richard hosted a dinner party for a group of us, a mix of Americans, Brits, South Africans and continental Europeans.

As we finished our meal and began clearing the plates, Richard waved us back in our chairs. “Don’t get up, there’s pudding!”

Now, the visual image that immediately popped into my mind was a bowl of thick, creamy, custard-like deliciousness – the kind of thing that would put a big, fat grin on Bill Cosby’s face.

This was not to be.

Out came Richard with a pint of ice cream and a bowl of fruit. What was this? Was he hoping the ice cream would melt…and turn into pudding?

Almost in unison, all of the Americans at the table said, “I thought you said we were having pudding?”

The non-Americans looked confused. “We are. Here it is.” They went on to explain that in the countries where they were raised, pudding refers to any sweet concoction that follows a meal.

After much heated debate, we decided to put the issue to rest by agreeing to disagree: the Americans held strong to their custard-like notions of pudding, and the international contingent stood by their contention that pudding is merely a synonym for dessert.

Well, it turns out we were both right…and we were both wrong.

(Nerd alert: In a totally nerdy frenzy, I decided to look into the history of pudding… Scroll to the bottom if you want to skip the mini history lesson…)

After doing a little research on the subject, I found that the world’s first puddings were really more like sausages (the word pudding itself is derived from the Latin word for sausage) and were savory, not sweet. Even Medieval puddings were mostly meat-based.

Somewhere around the 17th century, sweet puddings entered the picture along side savory ones, consisting mostly of flour, nuts and sugar boiled in special “pudding bags.” By the late 18th century, cooks had phased out savory puddings, and by the 19th century puddings began to resemble cake, although they were still boiled.

So when did what we Americans call “pudding”begin to resemble custard, a separate European phenomenon with a similarly lengthy history?

I couldn’t find a very clear answer for this, but it looks like the two separate histories became sort of jumbled in the mid-19th century. At that time, an English chemist named Alfred Bird developed “custard powder,” a derivative of cornstarch, which allowed cooks to thicken foods – especially custards – with something other than eggs. Americans went crazy for it.

So at the turn of the century, food companies latched onto the custard powder/cornstarch phenomenon and started promoting custards and puddings as health foods, and it looks like that’s where pudding and custard converged. Jell-o and Royal started marketing “quick” custards and puddings for their health benefits (funny to think of chocolate pudding as health food, eh?), and the modern American pudding industry was born. By the 1930s you could get pudding mixes at almost any grocery store.

The British phenomenon of calling any dessert a “pudding” probably stems from the 18th or 19th century and at this point has just become a colloquialism.

Bottom line? The history of pudding is convoluted, and you can get away with calling a host of things by that name – some sticky, some figgy, others made with bread or rice. And as long as it tastes good, what’s in a name, anyway?

But all this pudding talk stirred up a craving for what I have called pudding all my life. And whether you’re American, British, South African, French or any other nationality, I think you’ll agree this recipe is delicious.

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