Southern Banana Pudding

Banana pudding is democracy in a baking dish. It shows up at church suppers and funeral receptions, Fourth of July picnics and Christmas dinners. The recipe costs almost nothing. The technique requires no special training. Yet done properly, it produces a dessert so satisfying that fancier confections seem like they're trying too hard.

The dish became a Southern institution when Nabisco's vanilla wafers arrived in 1901. Before that, cooks layered sponge cake or ladyfingers. The wafers were cheaper, more accessible, and something magical happened when they softened in the custard overnight. They transformed into something neither cookie nor cake but impossibly tender layers that melted on the tongue.

I have eaten banana pudding from diners, church basements, and white-tablecloth restaurants across the South. The best versions share three qualities: a custard rich enough to coat a spoon, bananas ripe but not brown, and a meringue that blooms golden on top. Instant pudding mix has its defenders. I am not among them. Twenty minutes at the stove produces something incomparably better.