Monday, April 20, 2009

Milk: Unfriendly chocolate pudding

I prefer a dessert that is too sweet to one that is not sweet enough. Anne Mendelson's old-fashioned chocolate pudding calls for 2 cups milk, 2 squares unsweetened chocolate, and 1/3 cup sugar. It was incredibly, almost inedibly, austere. For comparison, I looked at my 1946 Joy of Cooking, which also contains a recipe for chocolate pudding. This one calls for 2 cups milk, 1 ounce chocolate and  1/2 cup sugar. Very sensible! More sugar, less chocolate, almost certainly a milder, tastier pudding.

What is with our weird national obsession with ever darker, harsher chocolate? It's ruining all the desserts! You know what's a good way to eat chocolate? In a malted. Or in a Hershey's bar. Or in a thin layer coating the coconut in an Almond Joy. I'd sooner eat a bowl of boiled cabbage than a big hunk of fancy bittersweet chocolate.

UPDATE: Actually, I'm all wrong. I just saw a copy of the ancient Fannie Farmer cookbook from which Mendelson took her severe chocolate pudding recipe. It is exactly the same. I guess my theory is a bust; people were already going for the extra-dark chocolate in 1948. Maybe it really is just me.

3 comments:

  1. We'll just have to agree to disagree. Milk chocolate is just too sugary for me.

    I'm part of the problem!

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  2. Yeah, I too have the converse of your opinion on chocolate. I don't worship it in any form, but if I'm going to have some, I'll do a chunk of something dark and bitter over candy-bar-style milk chocolate anytime. Malt is a flavor I can't abide (Milk Duds? Aptly named), and Hershey bars taste like brown candle wax. But as always, you have me hanging on your every word. "Sad dun-colored sludge" made my day.

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  3. The pudding was just right, imso.

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