I have to say. There is a lot to be said for a good bowl of pudding. Although it’s been a long time since I’ve had a spoonful of pudding in my mouth, it is one of those things that I occasionally miss as far as sweets go. I liked some tapioca pudding, I’ll tell you.
It is the truth.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say. But I’m not sure I ever gulped down any hard truths. So where does that phrase come from?
It means that the true value of something is best determined by using that said thing.
Apparently, this phrase was longer when it started out. But over the years, the version has become shorter. When it started, the phrase was: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
The exact phrase was first recorded in the early 1600s. Back then, it was not like opening a box of Jell-O brand. Making pudding was a long process. And it was a different kind of pudding — a meaty pudding — filled with the likes of intestines or stomachs that may or may not have been contaminated. So you had to taste the stuff to find out if it was good, bad, or potentially poisonous. So yes. The proof really was in the pudding back then.
Since we are in the kitchen, let us stay there and examine another phrase.
Probably my favorite “class” of desserts. Cake.
But, as the old phrase goes: “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
Well, that doesn’t seem quite fair. Although, the meaning of the phrase says that we must make a choice between two things. We can’t have something both ways.
How did it come about? Because most people who have cake are eating it. Just like with the old Albanian proverb that says, “You can’t swim and not get wet.” But they are pointing out that the choices are mutually exclusive. Once you eat your cake, it’s gone. You no longer have it. So you can’t eat your cake and still have it around on the kitchen counter. That’s all.
The earliest records of the phrase pop up in the 16th century. But. The saying had one of its biggest historic moments because of Ted Kaczynski (AKA the Unabomber). He was a diehard member of Team “Eat Your Cake And Have It Too.” This “funky” wording of the phrase led to Kaczynski’s identification. Ted wrote it in the Unabomber manifesto, and he had also written it in a letter he’d sent to his brother, David. The case became one of the most famous and groundbreaking applications of “forensic linguistics.”
And finally, we’re still in the kitchen. Or maybe at the beach, when we hear “Happy as a clam.”
The meaning is obvious. Someone is very happy or content. But. As a clam?
Well, most historians agree that the phrase “happy as a clam” is actually a shortened version of the idiom “happy as a clam in the mud at high tide.” This mouthful of a phrase is thought to have originated with sailors and shellfish gatherers in the mid-1600s. The shortened version didn’t appear until the 1800s.
It started because clams generally live and reproduce in shallow water. So the phrase came about because clams are at risk during low tide when the ocean ebbs furthest from the shore. They are most exposed and vulnerable. But, a clam in the mud at high tide would be safe and perhaps “happy.”
The world is full of words and phrases describing our every occasion and mood.
I hope today is filled with pudding cake that you can have AND eat. And that having this goodness makes you as happy as a clam.
And if that isn’t so? I hope something makes you happy today.
Any. Little. Thing.
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“To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.”
—Mary Stuart
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“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
—James Oppenheim
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“It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.”
—Lucille Ball
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It makes me happy like cake at high tide. Or something.
