By: Angela Gillaspie © December 2002

Up until December 2002, I'd never made banana pudding.

Southern banana pudding is revered. Folks that make it from scratch are in the same class as silver anniversary couples, eighty-year-old ordained ministers that still cut the church's grass, and three-time NASCAR Champions: highly honored for all those years of trying, labor, and yellow flags.

The revelation of my family's pudding-less state rocked me as I threw away a couple of over-ripe bananas last week. "Waste not - want not," I heard Momma saying in the back of my mind. Being a conservative Southerner, it behooved her to throw out brown bananas; she either mushed them up to make banana fritters, sliced them for banana pudding, or slathered them with peanut butter and had a snack.

I didn't want to waste them, but I couldn't bring myself to eat those two mushy brown things. Why can't I make my family this famous Southern delight? It's not like I'm making a leftist political statement by failing to produce a layered creamy banana treat, or am I?

My daddy is a yellow dog republican, and back in his politicking days, he took us to many fundraisers, socials, and barbecues. I don't know why, but there was always a bowl or two of meringue-topped banana pudding available for the conservative folk to gobble up, probably because most republicans are food purists. Whipped topping was frowned upon - it was considered too 'untraditional.' Since Momma, Granny, and Great-Granny made it that way, then we should too, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

On the other hand, I wondered if my failure to make banana pudding made me a culinary snob. Am I too good for banana pudding? Elvis wasn't; he required the Graceland chefs to make banana pudding every day. Shoot, I bet that the meringue on Dolly Parton's banana pudding is as big as her hair! You can't tell me that Southern boys Bo Jackson and Charles Barkley don't like it. It's rumored that Jimmy Buffett ate lots of banana pudding at Mobile, Alabama's Dew Drop Inn.

Even the band Southern Culture On The Skids (www.scots.com) wrote a song, "Banana Puddin'" as a tribute to this dessert. They sing, "I want somethin' good and sweet to eat/Something that's easy on the gums and teeth/it takes a little time to develop the flavor/to soak it all up with your vanilla wafer." That reminds me, Uncle Booger used to say he liked the soft cookies and nanners because they were easy on his gums, (although I don't think they serve it the Georgia Big House - where he lives now).

Would my family eat it if I made it? Would I? It's been over two decades since I've eaten it. When I was young, my sisters and I ate banana pudding like crazy until one time my older sister said, "I wish Momma would make it without the meat."

I remember suspiciously eyeing the brownish lumps and thinking, "Eww, what kind of meat is that?"

Ah, it wasn't meat - it was chunks of bananas. I never really ate banana pudding much after that epiphany. Maybe this is a reason that I haven't made banana pudding, I have repressed memories of brown slimy lumps hidden under pudding, vanilla wafers, and a crown of whipped topping - sort of like buried treasure, except it's a buried unidentifiable brownish gob.

Of course, the real reason for not making banana pudding turned out to be simple. When I asked my family, "Want some banana pudding?" everyone said they'd eat it if I left out the bananas. I reckon I could mix up a batch of vanilla pudding layered with cookies and whipped cream, but I'd still have two over-ripe bananas left, wouldn't I?

UPDATE: I have since then made banana pudding and I'd like to share a few recipes with you. Click here to see them.