Since I am not doing my nightly shows anymore I wanted to make this dessert this week for you. I hope some of you try it even though you don’t see me making it.
The dessert without a name. You all have had some form of it. Bananas, Pudding, ‘Nilla Wafers and whipped cream. I felt it was southern, as one time, I had it from a soul food restaurant steam table outside of downtown Dallas. It was hot, so rich. I jumped in a cab with my good author and southern friend Nancie McDermott, and off we went into an area of Dallas she had heard of a great lady who made killer soul food (Just to let you know if Nancie has a hunch of something good you get in the cab! The cab driver didn’t want to take us to that side of town; she said it was dangerous. We told her that we would buy her lunch. Sure, enough that worked! Food always works! She said she would wait as nobody would come out to pick us up (This is pre-Uber). We got plates of food and a sandwich for the driver, she said. Oh, I guess it’s safe since the police are having lunch here!
Nancie said that her friend Chef Bill Smith of Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, NC (he retired in 2019), had it on his menu, and it was trendy, and he called it Good Banana Pudding. She feels it is a Southern home cook’s streamlining of the Classic British Trifle. And I agree. How you make it is up to you. I have seen so many shortcuts, and some are what you may be used to flavor and texture-wise.
First, the cookie: Nabisco’s Vanilla Wafers 1898, which changed in 1967 to “Nilla Wafers as real pure vanilla is not used in them anymore. When a recipe for the pudding dessert was placed on the package back in the 1940s, southerners started using them in droves. This is the dessert you always have at a family reunion, covered dish supper (potluck), or Funeral. I created my own cookie to make that are very flavorful and even have vanilla!
Next, the pudding: Oh, boy. Jell-O came out with Banana Flavored pudding, which eased the making of this dessert. I love to make my Banana Pastry Cream to use instead. Some stores do not carry the Banana Cream, flavor outside of the south.
Topping: Most of the recipes today for this dessert have Cool-Whip as the topping. Formerly in the early, non-fast days of the method, it was a toasted meringue. I only use Cool-WhipÔ on morning shows when I can’t have whipped cream melt under the lights of the studio. Today's dessert we will make a meringue.
I hope you will take the time to make this Southern Dessert that I call, Banana Pudding Trifle.
