Proof of the pudding

I like pudding. 

Chocolate. Butterscotch. Vanilla. Rice. Grapenut. Tapioca. And the near relations: mousse, flan, and whatever's in the middle of those chocolate volcano cakes. And, of course, bread pudding. (Worth a trip to New Orleans for, and it's near-ubiquitous there.)

My father had a colossal sweet tooth, so we always had desserts at our house, and when my mother didn't have time to bake, she'd whip up something quick. As often as not, that was pudding. If she enough time for making something but not enough time for baking something, she made chilled "parfait" of graham crackers and cooked chocolate pudding. If she had a bit of time but not enough for the graham cracker concoction, she made plane old cooked pudding. If she didn't have any time, she made instant. My mother was a scratch baker (and cook), but when it came to pudding, cooked or instant, it came from a little carboard box from Jell-o or Royal. 

Everyone (in their right mind) preferred cooked pudding to instant, but sometimes when it was instant-time, my mother made a combo of chocolate and vanilla, putting them in clear glass bowls - chocolate layer followed by vanilla layer, topped off with half of a maraschino cherry. (I can't say I've ever replicated this "recipe," but I do have a couple of those little clear glass bowls, which are very useful keepers of small amounts of ingredients when baking or cooking. Most recently, I used them for orange zest and freshly squeezed OJ needed for a yummy orange-shrimp-pasta recipe of mine.)

I like pudding.

I rarely make it, but when I'm out and see rice pudding, tapioca, or grapenut pudding on the menu - which I believe can only happen in restaurants/diners that specialize in non-exciting, non-innovative old time American-New England cuisine - I'll often order it. The one and only time I was in Greece, 50+ years ago, the treat of the day was finding a street vendor selling little cups of rizogalo - 

rice pudding dusted with cinammon. 

But one thing about pudding: with the possible exceptions of flan and bread pudding, pudding is eaten with a spoon.

Not so for the youth of the world, who've begun convening in parks and other central locations to eat pudding with a fork.

According to a recent article I saw in The Boston Globe, "eating pudding, in public, with forks" is "the latest social media-driven activity now sweeping the world." Or the GenZ world at least. (All I see on social media, which for me equals BlueSky, is the stuff of politics. That and cute dogs and the occasional poem.)

And the origins of forked pudding are in a country not generally associated with fun.  

The first Pudding mit Gabel [Pudding with Fork] took place in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe, best known as the site of the country’s Supreme Court, in late August. Evidently, young people across Germany thought it was a tremendous idea. Within weeks, there were pudding fests in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Hanover, and other cities and towns.

These events attract crowds - a thousand or so twenty-somethings (zwanzig etwas) - and is now spreading around the world. It's recently arrived in the States. Although there was a recently small gathering at Boston's Northeastern University, and another in DC, it hasn't yet taken off. Let's give it some time.

The NU gathering was local, but I was not invited, anymore than an old geezer in the 1950's would have been asked to join in with a bunch of crazy college students seeing how many kids they could stuff in a telephone booth (ah, those were the days) or a VW Beetle. (I'm trying to come up with a similar youth fad of my college era. I guess it was streaking, but I was more into protesting the war in Vietnam.)

I'm happy that GenZ-ers are looking for ways to connect, and have fun, in real life. 

But pudding with forks? Why? Some have suggested the goal is to build community, and make new friends, a slippery grasp for togetherness, in a world that seems increasingly fractured.

But pudding with forks? Although spoons (löffeln) do a better job, I guess the answer is why not? 

The world is often a mean and ugly place, and young people are bearing a disproportionate burden of the meanness and ugliness, especiallly when it comes to what comes next. If you're living through particular and general existential crises, why not have some dopey fun and try eating pudding with a fork. 

The only downside is that it's harder to scrape the last of the goodness out of the cup using a fork. But I guess that's what tongues are for.

The proof of the pudding with forks fad will be to see whether it continues to grow, or just dies out. 

I may be sticking with the spoon method, but I'm rooting for pudding with forks to grow. With so much rancid stupdity and evil out there, we could all use a little fun. (Bonus points for the birthplace being Germany. Juhu!)

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Image Source: Silk