Desserts

The last course, unless you’re going for savouries, should be called pudding. It’s pudding because the unassailable home of puddings is here in England. No other cuisine comes close to our heritage of sweet things. The French rather despise puddings, thinking of them as being an offshoot of millinery and a separate breed of chef confectioners make them. They are also responsible for ice sculpture. In Italy they’re all unashamedly infantile and sloppy. Only in Germany is our pre-eminence challenged but it’s not close, not really. English puddings are the soul of our cooking.