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“Mulatto’s pudding”—the name stopped me cold.
Thinking about Mardi Gras this week, I’d dug up an old cookbook from my shelves, Original Picayune Creole Cook Book, published in New Orleans in 1901. A random recipe caught my eye: Brown Betty Pudding. It was translated into Creole French as “Pouding à la Mulâtresse.” Translate that back into English, and you get “mulatto’s pudding.”
Essentially, it’s apple brown betty, a dessert that had always seemed to me as comforting as the smells in Grandma’s kitchen—but now it suddenly let off a noxious whiff of race. Turns out that a “Betty” isn’t just some quaint, checkered-bonnet name like pandowdy, grunt, or slump, but a woman, possibly a slave cook or servant. And “brown” doesn’t refer to what happens to buttered breadcrumbs as a Betty bakes, but to a mixed-race woman’s complexion.
Actually, that’s not surprising. In a country with as complex and troubling a racial story as America’s there are bound to be relics, dishes born in slavery or otherwise roped off within ethnic subcultures. The Oxford Companion to Food already had its eye on Betty:
The name [Apple Brown Betty] seems to have first appeared in print in 1864, when an article in the Yale Literary Magazine listed it … with tea, coffee, and pies as things to be given up during 'training'. That author gave brown in lower case and Betty in upper case: and, in default of evidence to the contrary, it seems best to go along with the view that Betty is here a proper name.
Gabriella Petrick, a food historian at George Mason University in Virginia, says recipes with racial coding are common, especially in the South. Decoding—finding out, say, why a simple apple dessert originally from New England references some mixed-race cook—is tricky, if not impossible. And once a dish gets filtered through New Orleans and its tangle of races and ethnicities, it’s a mystery damn near impossible to crack.
What’s harder to fathom is why the image of mammy survives in the U.S., in the form of the well-coiffed, earring-wearing image of Aunt Jemima (a character born just about the time that recipe for “mulatto’s pudding” appeared) on syrup bottles and boxes of pancake mix. It just goes to show you: Like the smiling face of racism, food traditions die hard.
Photograph by Chris Rochelle / CHOW.com
@luckyfatima, "Definitely anything connected to mammy imagery, even with a modern makeover, falls into this category."
Are you saying we shouldn't be allowed to use the name "apple brown betty"? If so, are you frikking kidding me?
(For the record: I don't think I've ever actually said "apple brown betty" because I don't like the stuff. And my dislike of "apple brown betty" has nothing to do...+READ
@luckyfatima, "Definitely anything connected to mammy imagery, even with a modern makeover, falls into this category."
Are you saying we shouldn't be allowed to use the name "apple brown betty"? If so, are you frikking kidding me?
(For the record: I don't think I've ever actually said "apple brown betty" because I don't like the stuff. And my dislike of "apple brown betty" has nothing to do with race, although I wouldn't put it past pc idiots to accuse me of it.)-COLLAPSE
Isn't there a dessert called Moorshead?
whatever side of this one falls on, it's fascinating. I don't think I'd have the patience to sit through a protracted debate on Chomskyian linguistics and the implications of archaic terminology within the exiting social construct, but it is interesting.
@Blitherypoop - *snerk* I was thinking the same thing!
It is neat to know about the history of the apple brown Betty, and of course I now want some. But, its just a name. The writers disgust for it now because of the name is just silly. I think the fact that no one would think that the brown refers to Betty instead of the desert tells you it has nothing to do with race anymore. This is just a writer who has nothing good to write about so he is trying...+READ
It is neat to know about the history of the apple brown Betty, and of course I now want some. But, its just a name. The writers disgust for it now because of the name is just silly. I think the fact that no one would think that the brown refers to Betty instead of the desert tells you it has nothing to do with race anymore. This is just a writer who has nothing good to write about so he is trying to cause drama.-COLLAPSE
Great story CHOW! And now to address the word Mulatto, a word which I have lovingly been admonished to call myself for years...
Mulatto is indeed a lovely word! As a half-white, half-black dude myself, allow me to tell you a story I learned of its origins along my wayward path of racial self-discovery.
Mulatto = "mulato" from the 16th century Spanish word. This itself is derived from "mulo"...+READ
Great story CHOW! And now to address the word Mulatto, a word which I have lovingly been admonished to call myself for years...
Mulatto is indeed a lovely word! As a half-white, half-black dude myself, allow me to tell you a story I learned of its origins along my wayward path of racial self-discovery.
Mulatto = "mulato" from the 16th century Spanish word. This itself is derived from "mulo" which means "mule". What's a mule? Why nothing at all, except for the infertile child of a horse and a donkey!
Well, if we would follow 16th century race ideology, the Spaniard is the "caballo" (horse), and the African or "negro" as they were called was the "burro", or donkey.
Now while I love Apple Brown Betty's, why do you think that white/black mixed children were compared to an infertile horse/donkey hybrid? I think I'll stick with the sugar lovin' skin tone fun of the Brown Betty - she must know Aunt Jemimah, anyhow.
So go forth and use mulatto with all of its glorious husbandry and childless connotation! If no one knows the background, does it matter? Perhaps not, but now you do.-COLLAPSE
@cookieluvntasha I agree, and people need to stop complaining about "PC" because they took the time to read this article and were so offended about learning something. There's nothing wrong with this story and I, for one, found it interesting.
It stopped you cold? C'mon! You gotta be kidding!
All of you that posted as to what is the point of this posting must be out of the U.S.A. or just ignorant to the fact that February is Black History Month! DUH! That is why this story appeared. It really isn't a big deal that this dessert is possible named after a slave decendent of a White slave owner and African slave mother. However, we all must agree that African American history is really...+READ
All of you that posted as to what is the point of this posting must be out of the U.S.A. or just ignorant to the fact that February is Black History Month! DUH! That is why this story appeared. It really isn't a big deal that this dessert is possible named after a slave decendent of a White slave owner and African slave mother. However, we all must agree that African American history is really AMERICAN history, so why not just enjoy the little bits of history we hear about during the shortest month of the year.-COLLAPSE
If that shocks you, don't research spaghetti alla puttanesca...
Who cares! If that's the biggest problem in your life consider yourself lucky.
This and other attempts to rewrite or even eradicate history, albeit a sensitive issue, reminds me of the attempts by select groups to remove all vestiges or references to the Civil War, or, as in other countries, simply don't admit to having negative issues. If we keep rewritng history, we'll never understand nor appreciatethe changes we've made . As one reader said .. " Perhaps it was a...+READ
This and other attempts to rewrite or even eradicate history, albeit a sensitive issue, reminds me of the attempts by select groups to remove all vestiges or references to the Civil War, or, as in other countries, simply don't admit to having negative issues. If we keep rewritng history, we'll never understand nor appreciatethe changes we've made . As one reader said .. " Perhaps it was a racially charged name 111 years ago;". In that same breath, it probably was an acceptable social norm at that period in time (right or wrong) to make the reference "brown Betty". We can't go back and correct every misdeed .. if we did, the American Indians would kick us all out of the country without hesitation.-COLLAPSE
Idiotic PC strikes again! Mulatto is a perfectly good and useful word. "Brown Betty," on the other hand, sounds like a stool sample.
I think that most people see "apple brown betty" as an unusually named dessert, and don't go any further than that. Perhaps it WAS a racially charged name 111 years ago; why bring it up now? Sounds like the poster goes to great lengths to get offended.
Dumbest post of the year? Could be, and always better when the blogger takes themselves seriously. Shake off that PC crap, and live a little. No one is going to change it to seasonal,market driven,sustainable apple crisp. At least I hope not...
Thanks for writing this. There are a lot of anachronistic, racially charged monikers of various items, including foods, that could stand to be shelved. Definitely anything connected to mammy imagery, even with a modern makeover, falls into this category.
Rather than considering it racist, one might think that a somewhere in the past there was a woman who had a wonderful talent for baking delicious desserts. Whether she might have been a slave, a free creole woman, or living in the north doesn't necessarily matter. But what matters is tradition of something wonderful came out of whatever circumstances and has persisted over time. Kudos to Betty, I...+READ
Rather than considering it racist, one might think that a somewhere in the past there was a woman who had a wonderful talent for baking delicious desserts. Whether she might have been a slave, a free creole woman, or living in the north doesn't necessarily matter. But what matters is tradition of something wonderful came out of whatever circumstances and has persisted over time. Kudos to Betty, I feel sure that she'd be proud. If we try to hide and never talk about our history, bad or not, it is a mistake. We need to recognize it, and learn from it.-COLLAPSE
I just finished smashing this story posted to my Facebook timeline. This story is ridiculous. What is the point? Then why in the world did you get someone like Shannon Anne Carter to post the link to the story. She obviously knows nothing about food and I am not too sure you do either. You researched this for what end?
Oh my god! People were racist in 1901 in the South?