Midwest Memo
Pudding
by Alan Shultz

That was me rummaging around in the cooler section at the grocery store last week. I was looking for a little container of chicken salad for my lunch. These days my usual routine for lunch is chicken or tuna salad, the newspaper and maybe a candy bar to top it off.

My hunt was successful, and there was a bonus. In addition to the chicken salad, I happened upon a small container of chocolate pudding. "Homemade," the container said. It was a pleasant surprise, like running into an old friend one hasn't seen for ages.

"Oh, chocolate pudding," the cashier said, "I know what I'm going to have for lunch." "Nothing better," I added.

As pudding goes, this serving was somewhere between fair to fine. I suppose if the sign said "homemade" then that was the case - but I've personally stirred up better.

Chocolate pudding was a staple in our house while I was growing up. We had a pantry off the kitchen and the boxes of pudding and Jell-O mixes were stored in a builtin drawer situated under a row of shelves. The offering in that drawer was pretty standard fare. Vanilla and chocolate pudding mixes lined up with the occasional butterscotch. Jell-O was red or green for the most part and those little familiar boxes completed the row. The tapioca was too tall for the drawer so it had its place up on one of the shelves. I think its neighbors were syrup and honey.

The pantry was its own odd little domain with a big window set high above the long shuttered opening where the ice man had once make his delivery. A lone light bulb on a twisted electrical wire hung from the ceiling down to where one could click it on with a pull chain.

Everything in the pantry had its own familiar, timetested spot and the pudding drawer was no exception. It was kept well stocked and visited often.

In the household of my childhood, the maker of the pudding got to scrape the cooking pot clean. That's how I remember it anyway. I often volunteered for pudding duty.

Looking back, I think making pudding is a combination of the teaching of patience, and the wonder of transformation. Even as I type these words I can conjure up the ritual of stirring, stirring, stirring until you thought your arm would fall off. We had an electric stove that added a little bit to the task. Lessons learned of burnt pudding on

the bottom of the pan

spurred me on to stir, stir, stir.

And then, as if from nowhere, the sudden change, the thickening, the voila moment: pudding. It fascinates me even to this day.

We would pour the pudding in equal amounts in cereal bowls lined up neatly on the kitchen table. The number of bowls would match the number of people stirring about in the household. Levels were checked for equal portions, a spatula whisked once around the cooking pot could make things even, next the bowls were placed in the refrigerator. Finally, the spatula and I had a date to clean the pan before it wound up in the sink.

As a true chocolate pudding connoisseur, I can argue the merits of eating pudding warm with cream on the top or chilled cold with a rather thick top layer formed. I cannot speak to day-old pudding since none has ever been allowed to age that long in my presence. If whipped cream is available, by all means!

Meanwhile, as my grandmother used to say, "I've got a taste," and only home made, home-stirred chocolate pudding will do.