Puddin' It On

"Let us seriously reflect what a pudding is composed of," Samuel Johnson suggested while touring the Hebrides with Boswell. "It is composed of flour, that once waved in the golden grain, and drank the dews of the morning; of milk, pressed from the swelling udder by the gentle hand of the beauteous milk-maid ... It is made with an egg, that miracle of nature, which the theoretical Burnet has compared to Creation."

You might think the good doctor overdid it a bit in his Meditation on a Pudding. So did I -- until I stumbled upon a shop, probably the only one in the country, devoted solely to the stuff.

The place, appropriately called Puddin', is in New York City. Run by Chef Clio Goodman, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America, it serves the kind of luscious, decadent, velvety goodness Dr. Johnson clearly must have had in mind.

One serving of Goodman's puddings and you realize that the childhood version your mom used to make out of a box is just that -- for children. Goodman's stuff is for grown-ups. Not that pudding made from a boxed mix can't be pretty darn good, especially if you do as I do and use half and half instead of milk and throw in a little something extra like chocolate chips.

The same cannot be said for so-called instant pudding, which seems unnatural to me and tastes it. It's a time saver, but the trade-off is too great. Not only is the result inferior, but when you resort to instant pudding you forego one of the great pudding pleasures: Eating the stuff while it is still warm. And don't get me started on those individually packaged pudding cups. They are simply instant pudding made in a factory.

Chocolate pudding begins with milk, sugar, chocolate, eggs and cornstarch stirring on the stove. (TOM HARTE)

Pudding made from scratch, on the other hand, is on an altogether different level. A British invention, it should make anyone think twice about denigrating English food in general. In fact, the word pudding is such a fundamental culinary term in the U.K. that there it is used to refer to any dessert, even cake or ice cream. In this country the word refers only to sweet creamy desserts akin to custard.

However, puddings didn't start out as desserts. Originally, believe it or not, they were sausages, and that's where they got their name. The Latin word for sausage, "botellus," became the French "boudin" and ultimately the English "pudding." Even in the 19th century that term was still being used for sausage-like preparations, typically involving ingredients stuffed into an animal's intestines and cooked. Thus, Burns properly refers to haggis as "the great chieftain o' the pudding race."

Around the 17th century, animal casings could be replaced with the newly invented pudding cloth, a true culinary innovation if ever there were one. Yet even the preparation of sweet desserts using that device still resembled the process of sausage-making. So the term pudding began to be applied to desserts as well.

One thing hasn't changed. For really great pudding you must make it yourself -- or travel to New York to visit Clio Goodman's shop. The proof, of course, is, well, you know where.

Chocolate Puddin'

This is the recipe that effectively launched the Puddin' dessert shop in New York City. When chef Clio Goodman first made it for a client when she was working as his personal chef, he was so taken with it he proposed they open a pudding shop together, and the rest, as they say, is history. The recipe is adapted from the shop's official cookbook.

5 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

3 egg yolks

1 and 1/3 cups sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

10 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Thoroughly whisk together milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar, cocoa powder and salt. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until warm, 3-4 minutes. Finely chop chocolate and add to mixture, continuing to whisk, until it begins to thicken and whisk leaves a faint imprint when pressed onto the surface of the pudding, about 15 minutes. Strain mixture through a sieve and cool for 10 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and chill completely.

Tom Harte's book, "Stirring Words," is available at local bookstores. A Harte Appetite airs Fridays 8:49 a.m. on KRCU, 90.9 FM. Contact Tom at semissourian.com or at the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699.