On the face of it, the expression “the proof is in the pudding” doesn’t make sense. It’s a shortening of the proverbial saying, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Pudding is an old word for sausage, and in this case the proof is the act of testing it by tasting it. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Don Davidson.
I’m from Colorado, Montrose to be specific.
I teach at Colorado Mesa University, and I’m glad to be on A Way with Words.
I enjoy it, and I use it all the time.
Well, welcome, Don.
Glad to have you here.
You bet.
The question that I have for you guys is having to do with an idiom that I’ve heard since I was pretty young.
And that idiom is in regards to when somebody asks you how things are going to work out or what the results are going to be.
And that idiom is called the proof is in the pudding.
And I’ve often wondered where that came from.
The original phrase was the proof of the pudding is in the eating, which makes a whole lot more sense, doesn’t it?
Sure, it does.
And that saying, or versions of it, has been around for centuries, hundreds and hundreds of years.
But more recently, in the last hundred years or so, we’ve just sort of shortened it to the proof is in the pudding.
And there are a couple of things to say about that pudding, one of which is that it’s not what we think of as a dessert.
It’s more of a savory meat mixture that’s stuffed into casing like sausage.
Pudding has long in English been a word that refers to that. And so, you know, if you’re testing pudding, that kind of pudding, then that’s a really important thing to do in pre-refrigeration days.
You know, you’re really testing it to see if it’s okay. Because, you know, sausage over history has been kind of an iffy matter.
If you think about the word botulism, for example, that word comes from the Latin word for sausage.
You know, you’re checking for foodborne illness.
So you want to test out that pudding.
It’s like testing food.
Yeah, so the proof means to test.
Right.
It’s not about proof as evidence.
Exactly.
It’s about the act of testing.
Yeah, it’s the same proof that you see in like page proofs for a magazine or a book or a proving ground.
It’s a testing ground.
So the proof of the pudding, the testing of the pudding is in the eating was the original use of the phrase.
And now we’ve just kind of lost that.
Well, that’s very good.
Yeah, I guess that begs the question in that particular instance.
If you were going to eat it, the proof would be in the pudding, and I guess proof might be not getting ill.
Right, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
That’s exactly it.
Well, thank you very much.
That was very enlightening.
I speak in idioms all the time because of my advanced age and also my enjoyment of English, particularly spoken language.
And I look forward to using this in my course at Colorado Macy University and seeing if we can incorporate that into my lessons.
Bring out a sausage tray for everyone to test.
Yeah, who goes first?
I’ll do that.
Thank you so much.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
You bet.
Bye-bye.
Take care, Don.
Well, Don had a great question.
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