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In Dante’s Paradiso, he describes nine spheres of heaven. The seventh is for the contemplatives, people who dedicated their lives to ascetic contemplation; as a reward, they get to live on Saturn.

And, according to Del Monte, the seventh heaven also has pineapple pudding.

serving-heaven

Seventh Heaven Pineapple Pudding
Author: Del Monte (1954)
Ingredients
  • 2 pkgs. vanilla tapioca pudding
  • 4 cups milk
  • 2 envelopes unflavored gelatine
  • 1/2 cup cold water
  • 2 egg whites
  • 3 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/2 cup moist shredded coconut
  • 1 No. 2 can DEL MONTE Pineapple Chunks
  • 4 to 6 maraschino cherries, sliced
Instructions
  1. Make pudding with milk according to package directions.
  2. Soften gelatine in the cold water; stir into hot pudding.
  3. Beat egg whites till frothy, continue beating, while adding sugar a teaspoon at a time, till mixture stands in soft peaks.
  4. Stir pudding mixture into egg whites. Pour into 2-qt. mixing bowl. Chill 6 to 8 hrs.
  5. At serving time, unmold and sprinkle with coconut. Arrange drained CHUNKS and cherry slices on top and around mold.
3.2.1263

recipe-pineapplepudding

pudding

Contemplate the pudding.

gelatin

Contemplate the softening gelatin.

folding

Contemplate some whipped egg whites and then contemplate… er, fold them all together.

unmolded

This looked distinctly blotchy when unmolded, thanks to the tapioca. There were also a couple of weird patches that could have been either gelatin not fully mixed in, or big tapioca lumps. I contemplated them for a while and then just put coconut and pineapple and cherries all over it.

skeptical

“I’m sorry, am I supposed to eat this entire pudding?”

“If you like it, sure.”

“Can I have it in a bowl?”

small-cup bite

“Huh.”

“What? I thought it would be pretty good from tasting while cooking.”

“It’s just really… vanilla. Oh, wait, I know a way to make this better.”

I waited in the dining room, puzzled, as he went into the kitchen — and returned with a bottle.

rum

The rum helped slightly, but it still just wasn’t very interesting.

Verdict: Sweet, but not very interesting.

Tasting notes:

This is called pineapple pudding despite a distinct lack of pineapple, and as soon as you get under the fruit and coconut it’s just plain vanilla… literally. It looked beautiful and completely failed to live up to that potential. A splash of rum made it slightly interesting, but not enough.

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