When desserts were simpler

When I was young, there was pudding that needed to be cooked and, well--that's it. Instant pudding didn't yet exist although instant karma may have. Perhaps I should clarify this: instant pudding didn't exist in my mother's world. Neither did any type of instant fudge. But back to the pudding... After cooking a batch of pudding, my mother would pour it into what were called pudding bowls. These were of a size determined to be appropriate for one serving of dessert. After filling the bowls, my mother would cut out round circles of wax paper and lie them on top of the still warm pudding. Then off to the refrigerator they'd go.

When the pudding cooled and was ready to eat, one would pull the wax paper off the top of the pudding before eating it. Apparently, the thick skin that forms on the top of the pudding was undesirable. I have (and had at the time) two concerns about this practice:

1) WTF? The pudding is what it is. The skin is just part of the pudding experience. If you don't like the skin on the top, eat Jell-o, for God's sake.

2) I liked the skin. So in order to eat it, I had to scrape it off the wax paper with my teeth. This was stupid. It's sort of like stripping flour of all its nutrients in processing then adding some back in and calling the flour enriched.

It's interesting to me that they haven't come up with instant pudding that forms a skin necessitating a wax paper hat. After all, the skin pulls off a significant amount of concentrated pudding so the pudding companies would sell more pudding if people threw away a portion of each batch they made.