On Easter weekend, I cooked up a storm, making ham, ham rice, homemade potato salad, deviled eggs, beans, and homemade banana pudding. When I say ‘homemade’, I mean it. There is no instant pudding and Cool Whip happening at my house! I make an old-fashioned banana pudding from scratch, the way my grandmother taught me- real vanilla custard cooked on the stove with whipped meringue to go on top.
Everyone at our house enjoys banana pudding, including me. In fact, I had to give a few bowls away because it kept calling my name from the refrigerator!
We’d been so busy lately, it had been a while since I’d made a big home-cooked meal. My husband, Dale, was so appreciative of the entire Easter dinner, he made me laugh. As he devoured yet another spoonful of banana slices, Nilla wafers, custard and meringue, he said: “Honey, this is why I married you. You had all of the qualifications: you love sports, you can hunt and fish, you play a mean game of pool, and you cook like this!”
Of course, this wasn’t the first time banana pudding has inspired love down South. Hickman County, Tennessee celebrates the glories of this delicious golden dessert with the National Banana Pudding Festival. And, for decades, southerners have written odes to this scrumptious treat. Take, for instance, this article in North Carolina’s Our State Magazine; I couldn’t have said it better!
Whereas banana pudding inspires undying devotion and amorous affections, it seems there are other desserts that do not:
A doctor was addressing a large audience at a health conference in Tampa, Florida: “The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High fat diets can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water. But there is one food that is the most dangerous of all. It causes weight gain, reduces sex drive, and can wreak years of grief and suffering on those who eat it. Can anyone here tell me which food I am speaking about?”
After several seconds of silence, a 75-year-old man in the front row raised his hand, and softly said, “Wedding Cake.”
Happy Monday,
Mary
