Wind Pudding, Air Sauce, and Balloon Trimmings

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Suzy in Duncanville, Texas.

Duncanville, Texas. Well, welcome to the program. How are you doing today?

Just fine.

What can we help you with?

Well, when I was a kid growing up, my mother, we’d always ask mom,

What are we having for dinner?

And she’d say, when putting an air sauce, which all of us going, huh.

And it took us a few years before we finally got smart and figured out what she was telling us.

And when I tell my grandchildren that now, they just had the same reaction like, oh, whatever.

But we were just wondering where this could have come from,

If it was something maybe that they did during the Depression

Or if she was just trying to get us off her coattails.

So she would say, you’d say, what’s for supper?

And she’d say wind, pudding, and air sauce, right?

Correct.

Well, we can help you with that.

It’s been around a long time.

Oh, yeah, 1870s at least.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah, we can find it throughout the recorded history, usually in slangy context or jokey context.

But yeah, this is a fairly well-established term, and it comes with some companions.

So wind pudding means nothing, right?

Right.

And air sauce means nothing.

So nothing with nothing sauce.

Here’s one from 1902, and they add a third item to it, wind pudding, air sauce, and balloon trimmings.

Oh, nice.

And balloon trimmings.

Really?

And all of these mean you’re getting nothing but air, right?

Yeah.

Exactly.

Well, we had just never heard it before, and none of my friends have ever heard their parents or grandparents say it.

So I’m going, well, where did this come from?

-huh.

The first uses that I can find of it, and Martha, maybe you’ve got the same information, are from stories about the American Civil War where they’re talking about troops kind of going without.

So they show up at the mess tent and there’s nothing except maybe like some bony squirrel to eat.

And they talk about how some of the soldiers were so disgusted they just turned around because they’d rather have air sauce and wind pudding, right?

Meaning they’d rather do without than eat the disgusting boiled squirrel that they were trying to serve in the mess.

Yeah.

I think I can understand that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think having a sense of humor helps there.

Yeah, it’s definitely like a different way.

And so instead of just a lot of griping and complaining about the food being terrible,

They just, like, put a joke on top of it and probably went to, you know,

Went out to the bushes and found some wild herbs to eat.

I don’t know what they did.

Well, that’s really interesting because I’ve never heard it before.

Well, Susie, I think it’s definitely worth reviving, don’t you?

Well, I do.

Yeah.

I’m going to start using it.

Well, great.

Well, thank you for letting me know.

It’s our pleasure, Susie.

Thanks for calling.

Bye, Susie.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

I love those old terms, the stuff that’s passed down from, you know, grandma to grandchild and again from grandma to grandchild, right?

Yeah, that one’s so handy.

I’m surprised it’s died out.

I think it’s time to revive it.

Yeah.

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