Talk:Rice pudding
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Erm...if this is cooked "same as Rice Pudding", then it can't be rice pudding. Can it? Deb 18:14, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Is this article a little... POV? It seems very negative with the baby food suggestions. Almost anti-rice pudding. Maybe it's just because I like rice pudding, and I'm annoyed at the suggestion that it's because of "nursery associations." Rhobite 00:27, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
- Yes. Mea culpa. I'm responsible, and, it's true, I don't much like rice pudding. My wife loves it, however. I do believe that it's factual to say that it is a food on which opinions are sharply divided, and that this is one of its characteristics.
- Please feel free to fix and/or add balance. I rewrote the article in a hurry. The original article consisted solely of a recipe--and a recipe for a variant of rice pudding, as Deb points out. If left in that form, I believe it would have been promptly deleted (or transwikied) as there are a substantial number of Wikipedians who disapprove of having recipes in Wikipedia. I tried to make the point that rice pudding is historically and culturally significant. The only literary quotation I could think of was the A. A. Milne poem. I looked in several cookbooks to see if any of them would wax rhapsodic over the stuff, no dice. I am sure that there must be books or articles that could be quoted in praise of rice pudding, but I don't know them offhand. Maybe I'll put in a query at alt.quotations.
- Rice pudding. Slimy, gooey, lumpy, tasteless, abominable rice pudding. Yuck! Eeeeewwwwww! Mary Jane had it right. Dpbsmith 16:30, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
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- Thank you! Among POV issues this wasn't the most, er, pressing, but the article's better now.
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- Rice pudding. Sweet, creamy, delectable, textured, delicious rice pudding. Mmmmmm. Rhobite 16:52, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] National Rice Pudding Day, August 9th?
Googling on "National Rice Pudding Day" shows that number of websites, including http://www.cdkitchen.com/foodholidays/index.php?m=08&y=2004 assert that August 9th is National Rice Pudding Day (resumably in the United States). All references that claim this holiday exists agree that the date on which it is celebrated is August 9th. However, none of them says what official or organization was responsible for the designation. I don't think I want to put it in the article yet without more confirmation, but if you rabid PROORYZAISTIC zealots want to go ahead I would not say you nay. Dpbsmith 19:44, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- I have the same issue. I'll leave this to Rhobite, if he wants it in and can find a nation--I'm not sure it's US, do other nations have crazy days too? Hah! The government stands with us! [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 19:53, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)
- That site appears to have cornered the market on making every day a specific food holiday. Some days have even doubled up, although shouldn't they complement each other? I question the wisdom of making national mustard day the same as national waffle day. Eww...
- In other news, happy National Vanilla Ice Cream Day! Rhobite 19:57, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)
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- Cool, smooth, luscious, clean, fresh-tasting vanilla ice cream... with little visible flecks of vanilla in it... and a visibly yellowish tint... so dense that the scoops makes little ripple-chatter marks in it... with 300 calories per half-cup serving, 299 from fat... where the real serving size is, of course, the entire pint container... mmmmm.... give me a pint of vanilla ice cream and you can have a gallon, no, a firkin, no, a hogshead of rice pudding. With as many raisins in it as you want. Dpbsmith 02:38, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC) P. S. Go ahead, try to describe vanilla ice cream in a way that suggests you don't like it, I dare you. Dpbsmith 02:39, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Antioryzaistic references
While waiting for alt.quotations to deliver the goods, I've been Googling and searching Amazon some more.
There's a book entitled "I Wish I Liked Rice Pudding" by Joyce Dunbar.
There's a book entitled "Ask for Love and They Give You Rice Pudding" by Bradford Angier and Barbara Corcoran.
Googling on "rice pudding" site:www.gutenberg.net turns up quite a lot. Mostly anti-rice-pudding, though.
- ""But do you think, my dear Maria, that cats can maintain themselves chaste on a meat diet? I never give mine anything more exciting than cold potatoes and rice pudding, and I find that they thrive on it, Mr. Meredith!"
- —Isabel Meredith, "A Girl among the Anarchists"
In Ethel Turner's classic Seven Little Australians, the children express dissatisfaction with the quality of their food compared to the adults':
- "My father and Esther" (they all called their young stepmother by her Christian name) "are having roast fowl, three vegetables, and four kinds of pudding," he said angrily; "it isn't fair!"
- "But we had dinner at one o'clock, Pip, and yours is saved as usual," said Meg, pouring out tea with a lavish allowance of hot water and sugar.
- "Boiled mutton and carrots and rice pudding!" returned her brother witheringly. "Why shouldn't we have roast fowl and custard and things?"
Henry James, in A Passionate Pilgrim, writes:
- having dreamed of lamb and spinach and a salade de saison, I sat down in penitence to a mutton-chop and a rice pudding.
A seemingly positive reference is found in W. H. Hudson, A Traveller in Little Things"
- He had a good master and was well fed, the food being bacon, vegetables, and homemade bread, also suet pudding three times a week. But what he remembered best was a rice pudding which came by chance in his way during his first year on the farm. There was some of the pudding left in a dish after the family had dined, and the farmer said to his wife, "Give it to the boy"; so he had it, and never tasted anything so nice in all his life. How he enjoyed that pudding! He remembered it now as if it had been yesterday, though it was sixty-five years ago.
In Kenelm Chillingly, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (of "it was a dark and stormy night" fame), a would-be host reassures a prospective guest:
- "Oh, he has taken the rail to his office; but he will be back long before dinner, and of course you dine with us."
- "You're very hospitable, but--"
- "No buts: I will take no excuse. Don't fear that you shall have only mutton-chops and a rice-pudding...
In this 1917 Red Cross report, the "ordinary diet" given to Turkish prisoners of war in Egypt is given as:
- Breakfast: Arab bread; sweetened fresh milk.
- Lunch: Arab bread; beef; rice, vegetables.
- Dinner: Arab bread; rice soup; rice pudding.
Since the Red Cross opines that "We tasted the day's food and found it excellent. All provisions examined by us were of good quality and carefully overlooked. The kitchen, with its well-fitted ranges and polished utensils, struck us favourably," I suppose we should count this in favor of rice pudding.
Apparently Project Gutenberg has gotten started on periodicals, and Punch, Vol. 156, Jan. 1, 1919 contains this knee-slapper:
- A case which has been puzzling the medical authorities is reported from Warwickshire. After acting strangely for several days a boy named TOMMY SMITH asked his parents if he could have rice pudding instead.
In What Katy Did, by Susan Coolidge, Dorry makes this diary entry:
- March 13.--Had rost befe for diner, and cabage, and potato and appel sawse, and rice puding. I do not like rice puding when it is like ours. Charley Slack's kind is rele good. Mush and sirup for tea.
The book also mentions:
- After church came Sunday-school, which the children liked very much, and then they went home to dinner, which was always the same on Sunday--cold corned-beef, baked potatoes, and rice pudding.
In Charles Dickens' A Schoolboy's Story, we read:
- Of course it was imposing on Old Cheeseman to give him nothing but boiled mutton through a whole Vacation, but that was just like the system. When they didn't give him boiled mutton, they gave him rice pudding, pretending it was a treat. And saved the butcher.
Walt Whitman, in Specimen Days, visiting a sick soldier, says:
- When I first saw him he was very sick, with no appetite. He declined offers of money--said he did not need anything. As I was quite anxious to do something, he confess'd that he had a hankering for a good home-made rice pudding--thought he could relish it better than anything. At this time his stomach was very weak.
The Reform Cookery Book (4th edition): Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century," by "Mrs. Mill", 1909, yields:
- Rice is one of the best foods the earth produces, and probably more than half of the hardest work of the world is done on little else, but those who have been used to strong soups, roast beef, and plum pudding will take badly with a sudden change to rice soups, rice savoury, and rice pudding. For one thing, so convinced are we of the poorness of such food, that we should try to take far too much, and so have excess of starch.
Aha! Here's a genuinely positive one: Dear Enemy by Jean Webster
- You would never dream all of the delightful surprises we are going to have: brown bread, corn pone, graham muffins, samp, rice pudding with LOTS of raisins, thick vegetable soup, macaroni Italian fashion, polenta cakes with molasses, apple dumplings, gingerbread--oh, an endless list!
Dream Days, by Kenneth Grahame yields:
- I had passed the mutton stage and was weltering in warm rice pudding, before I found leisure to pause and take in things generally...
Novel Notes by Jerome K. Jerome contains:
- I know a little girl, the descendant of a long line of politicians. The hereditary instinct is so strongly developed in her that she is almost incapable of thinking for herself. Instead, she copies in everything her elder sister, who takes more after the mother. If her sister has two helpings of rice pudding for supper, then she has two helpings of rice pudding. If her sister isn't hungry and doesn't want any supper at all, then she goes to bed without any supper.
Some of this will go into the article eventually. What I take from all this is that, traditionally, independent of its actual tastiness,
- Rice pudding was regarded as the ultimate in simple, cheap food;
- Rice pudding was frequently experienced as a repetitious item in the menu;
- Rice pudding was a common dessert in childrens' meals (yes, I'm going to get that word "nursery" into the article somewhere after all)
- Rice pudding was considered particularly suitable for children and invalids
Since rice pudding (like mutton) is today relatively rare in the U.S.—I was never served it as part of a school meal, for example—it has largely lost the "simple, cheap, repetitious" overtones.
[edit] Oh, my goodness, I'm so very sorry...
...the article has somehow gotten tipped in the anti-rice-pudding direction again. Seriously, alt.quotations came up with nothing useful and I haven't been able to find much in praise of rice pudding, but I'll keep looking. If anyone finds anything relevant, please put it in. I didn't really want to make it anti-rice-pudding. Dpbsmith 17:18, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Please leave the "culture" section in...
both because I think it is appropriate, but also because there is a widely held view that articles consisting solely of recipes are unsuitable for Wikipedia.
For the same reason, I've demoted the recipe section to make it clear that it has a supporting role. The purpose of the recipes in this article is to describe clearly what rice pudding is. The anti-recipe crowd grudgingly allows recipes in articles, but not if the article appears to be solely a recipe, or a recipe glorified with only a sentence or two of encyclopedic content. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 22:08, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Other Types of Rice Pudding
There are many types of rice pudding that aren't mentioned in this article. I grew up eating sticky rice desserts and rice flour custards that I believe are popular all over the Philipines and East Asia. Black rice pudding, I fist tasted in Indonesia, is one of my favorite desserts and should be mentioned here.
While visiting the States, I first tasted the rice pudding I believe this article refers to. It seemed to be plain vanilla pudding with rice in it. It was disappointing. Later, while in college in Turkey, I tasted the delicious custurdy sütlaç mentioned in this article.
I am not at all familiar with the North American and Northern Europe varieties of rice pudding this article focusses on, but I don't think they are as popular as the Middle Eastern and Asian puddings. Perhaps the article format should be changed to highlight the various varieties. Onionhound 07:09, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
- Be bold. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:35, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
- I would like to thank you for eliminating the blatant cultural bias that was in the article previously. Being a conossieur of various rice puddings, I wanted to change it myself, but you've done it for me. --69.140.24.166 07:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] The picture
That Scandinavian rice pudding doesn't look too friendly (there does seem to be an anti-rice-pudding sentiment!) - how about moving up one of the other pictures or getting one of the Pakistani silver-paper-decorated kheer?
