Proof of the Pudding
By Terri Elders
My spouse, Ken, spotted the package of banana pudding mix
I’d set on the kitchen counter. “No pudding in any guise,” he warned me.
“Oh, I thought I’d mash up these soft bananas and stir them
into that mix. You like banana cream pie.”
“Make banana bread instead. I don’t do pudding.”
I added pudding to a list that already included cabbage, sweet
potatoes, and deviled eggs. But I regretted Ken’s refusal to taste the down-home
dishes Grandma had taught me to cook, the nostalgic nibbles I dearly loved. He
even declined fried zucchini.
This was the same man who bragged he’d savored snails in garlic
sauce, purchased from a street vendor next to the Eiffel Tower. He’d lamented
that he couldn’t find quark, a kind of yogurt cheese he favored when he’d lived
in Germany. And Ken never pushed away any kind of fried meat.
A devotee of Miguel de Cervantes, Ken collected Don Quixote
paintings and images. He’d complained about his hero’s diet, described in the
opening pages of Cervantes’ 17th century Spanish novel as sparse,
monotonous and unpalatable.
“If Quixote and I hung out, I’d insist he try a
chicken-fried steak,” Ken said. “That would help fatten him up.”
I disliked having to toss out a dish that didn’t please his
palate. Ken knew I hated to throw any food away. My years in the Peace Corps
had taught me it’s unethical to waste food.
One spring as we weeded the front yard, I’d held aloft a
dandelion, lamenting that I couldn’t remember how Grandma had prepared her “mess
o’ greens.”
“She wilted the dandelion leaves in bacon grease, and added
onion and garlic,” I began, dreamily recalling the delicious aroma. “I think
she added a dash of vinegar. Or maybe it was pepper sauce.”
“It would be a mess, all right,” Ken had retorted, yanking
the weeds from my hand and tossing them into the wheelbarrow.
One morning I noticed that some of the apples I’d stored in
our pantry when they’d ripened on our trees the past autumn had begun to look dehydrated.
I also saw we had half a loaf of more-than-a-day-old French bread.
I thumbed through my recipes and found Grandma’s
instructions for apple bread pudding. Aha! Maybe I’d claim it was Brown Betty.
Grandma had made that, too, but it didn’t contain milk and eggs. Ken wouldn’t
know the difference. After all, in Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes had
immortalized the adage, (in one translation, anyway) “The proof of the pudding
is in the eating.
Sometimes Grandma served her bread pudding with a sauce,
either vanilla or caramel, but since Ken scrunched up his face at syrupy
toppings, I’d garnish it with whipped cream, which he loved.
“Ready for dessert, honey?
I baked something this afternoon.”
Ken favored me with his lopsided smile. “What’s it called?”
I scooped out a couple of servings into custard cups. I had difficulty
telling even a little white lie without turning crimson, so I averted my face.
I squirted whipped cream, cooking up an evasion.
“Oh, it’s something Grandma used to bake. It’s an old-fashioned
dish, like a Brown Betty with apples.”
Ken ate every bite. “It’s paradisaical,” he said. “I’ll take
seconds. What’s it called again? How do you make it??”
I bit my lip and handed him Grandma’s recipe card.
“Bread pudding?” Ken sputtered. “I thought you said it was
Brown Betty.”
“Hmmm. I must have pulled out the wrong recipe. Still want
seconds? It’s a pudding. That you don’t do in any guise.”
Ken grinned and handed me his bowl. “Guess I can’t say that
anymore.”
There’s more than one way to skin a cat, I’ve heard.
Wait…did Miguel de Cervantes say
that? No…I think it was Grandma.
This is book will be available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Woodhall Press. (Temporary delay in publishing because of pandemic.)
