Tapioca Pudding, Anyone?

Meal Monday

I will never understand why tapioca pudding does not get its due.

Last week, I picked up a container of Kozy Shack chocolate pudding from the supermarket. Not that chocolate pudding is all that hard to make: actually it is a snap to whip up.

(Here is a basic cocoa cornstarch pudding from allrecipes.com, and here is another from the same site for chocolate pudding made in the microwave. If you want to go gourmet with high end chocolate, take a look at Smitten Kitchen's version and a vegan coconut variation from 101 Cookbooks.)

But, if you are going to buy pre-made chocolate pudding, it is so much better to buy a brand that is pretty close to homemade than a concoction with hydrogenated fat, high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, and artificial flavoring. (Seriously, why does chocolate pudding need red food dye in it?)

But, I digress.

Anyway, there I was in the refrigerator section and I spied the Kozy Shack tapioca pudding. Eh, why not? The tapioca pudding got tossed in the supermarket cart, too.

Well, ps., I ended up being the only one eating the tapioca pudding. Now why was that? “I don’t like the little bits of tapioca,” my husband protested.

I’m sorry. If you put the tapioca pudding toe to toe with any artificially flavored and artificially colored vanilla pudding, the tapioca pudding would easily win any taste test.

Of course, the store stuff cannot hold a candle to freshly made tapioca pudding, especially the way my grandmother made it. My grandmother would fold beaten egg whites into the just-made warm pudding, giving it an ethereal lightness. It was sort of a poor man’s crème chiboust.

So delicious! Now what is wrong with that?

(If you want to make your own tapioca pudding, look here, and here, and here. My grandmother used a minute tapioca recipe, which, in addition to being easier to cook, resulted in barely noticeable tapioca nuggets in the final pudding. This is a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your tapioca point of view.)

Oh, and one more thing. Tapioca over the last ten years has become very trendy. Take a look at these New York Times articles (here, here, here, and here).

 

Comments

[Audrae Erickson]

High fructose corn syrup may have a complicated-sounding name, but it’s simply a kind of corn sugar that is nutritionally the same as table sugar.

High fructose corn syrup is used in the food supply because of its many functional benefits. For example, it keeps food fresh, retains moisture in bran cereals, helps keep breakfast and energy bars moist, maintains consistent flavors in beverages and keeps ingredients evenly dispersed in puddings and condiments. High fructose corn syrup enhances spice and fruit flavors in yogurts and marinades. In salad dressings and spaghetti sauce, it improves flavor by reducing tartness. In addition to its excellent browning characteristics for breads and baked goods, it is a highly fermentable nutritive sweetener and prolongs product freshness.

High fructose corn syrup is not sweeter than sugar; and high fructose corn syrup, sugar and honey all contain the same number of calories (four calories per gram).

Like table sugar and honey, high fructose corn syrup contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives.

Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at www.SweetSurprise.com.

Audrae Erickson
President
Corn Refiners Association