Two Vegetable Puddings

Here are two vegetables subjected to the same technique, and how differently we respond to each! The cabbage pudding is absolutely transcendent: we are carried from wherever and whenever that delicious aroma first reaches us—crisping pork, melting cabbage, toasting bread—to the Blue Ridge, Indian summer, some time ago. This pudding beckons us and warns us at the same time: eat heartily now, winter’s over that next hill. The corn pudding seems almost frivolous in comparison, but nonetheless delicious. This food almost dances, so generously does it celebrate summer’s harvest. One is lulled into thinking that sweet corn must have been out there forever, and that we will never lose it again.