The word pudding is believed to come from the French boudin, which may derive from the Latin botellus, meaning "small sausage", referring to encased meats used in medieval European puddings. Another proposed etymology is from the West German 'pud' meaning 'to swell'.
The word 'pudding' dates to the thirteenth century. It refers to the entrails or stomach of a sheep, pig or other animal stuffed with meat, offal, suet, oatmeal and seasonings. By the 1500s the word was used to refer to the guts or entrails or the contents of other people's stomachs especially when pierced with a sword, as in battle.
In the United States, pudding means a sweet, milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, instant custards or a mousse. In the United Kingdom, Ireland and some Commonwealth countries, the word pudding is used to describe sweet and savoury dishes.
Boiled or steamed pudding was a common main course aboard ships in the Royal Navy during the 18th and 19th centuries; pudding was used as the primary dish in which daily rations of flour and suet were employed.
One of the first documented mentions of pudding can be found in Homer's Odyssey where a blood pudding roasted in a pig's stomach is described. This original meaning of a pudding as a sausage is retained in black pudding, which is a blood sausage originating in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Another early documented recipe for pudding is a reference to asida is found in a tenth century Arabic cookbook by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq called Kitab al-Ṭabīḫ (The Book of Dishes). It was described as a thick pudding of dates cooked with clarified butter (samn).
A recipe for asida was also mentioned in an anonymous Hispano-Muslim cookbook dating to the 13th century. In the 13th and 14th centuries, in the mountainous region of the Rif along the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, flour made from lightly grilled barley was used in place of wheat flour.
A recipe for asida that adds argan seed oil was documented by Leo Africanus, the Arab explorer known as Hasan al-Wazan in the Arab world. According to the French scholar Maxime Rodinson, asida were typical foods among the Bedouin of pre-Islamic and, probably, later times.
One of the earliest mentions in 1617 in a recipe for Cambridge pudding, a pudding cloth is indicated; 'throw your pudding in, being tied in a fair cloth; when it is boiled enough, cut it in the midst, and so serve it in'. The pudding cloth is said to have revolutionised puddings. Puddings could now be made at any time, and they became a regular part of the daily fare of almost all classes.
A website dedicated to the dessert, online since the mid-1990s and consisting only of a low-quality image of it, became famous in Brazil for its humorous and longstanding nature. In 2015, it was hacked by the Islamic State.
The proverb, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating", dates back to at least the 14th century. Puddinghead Wilson written by Mark Twain, reflects the term's use as a metaphor for someone with the mind of a fool.
The original pudding was formed by mixing various ingredients with a grain product or other binder such as butter, flour, cereal, eggs, and/or suet, resulting in a solid mass. These puddings are baked, steamed, or boiled.