海角大神

When interviewed in November about efforts to reform the Baltimore Police Department, a resident responded: 鈥淭he proof is in the pudding. You鈥檝e checked all the boxes. Now the work has to begin, and are you really in earnest going to do the work?鈥� In other words, he will believe in the efforts when he sees some reforms. The strange phrase 鈥� the clue is in the custard? 鈥� is just one of many odd and interesting food idioms in English.

The contemporary iteration of the phrase likely brings to mind modern interpretations of proof and pudding. But the original proverb, 鈥渢he proof of the pudding is in the eating,鈥� doesn鈥檛 use these words as most Americans or British people understand them today. Pudding is a boiled meat-fruit-bread 鈥渃annonball鈥� (as we saw last week), and proof is 鈥渢est.鈥� The proverb thus means, according to Merriam-Webster, that 鈥渢he real worth, success, or effectiveness of something can only be determined by putting it to the test by trying or using it ... just as the best test of a pudding is to eat it.鈥�

As proof and pudding changed meanings over the centuries, English speakers remembered what the proverb was supposed to signify, but forgot exactly why. It got garbled into 鈥淭he proof is in the pudding,鈥� which bothers many language mavens because, as one bemoans, 鈥渋t makes no sense.鈥� It does make some kind of sense, though, when proof means 鈥渆vidence鈥� and not 鈥渢est.鈥�

If the proof isn鈥檛 in the pudding, eating humble pie might be required. 鈥淗umble pie鈥� sounds like a metaphor but it was a real dish. Numbles, or umbles, was a 14th-century word for 鈥渙ffal,鈥� usually the entrails of a deer. In the Middle Ages, the consumption of venison was regulated by a strict class hierarchy. Noblemen took the best parts of the fattest deer for themselves, the forester and the best hunter got the shoulders, and so on, down the social scale. Where the numbles fit in, though, was a point of contention. According to some sources, numbles should be given to the hunting dogs and to any area peasants; in others, they are described as some of 鈥渢he choicest parts of the stag鈥� and given to 鈥渢he lord of the hunt.鈥� 鈥淯mble pie鈥� was thus a humble food, with connotations of poverty and social inferiority, or the exact opposite, a dish worthy of a nobleman鈥檚 table. 聽

鈥淭o eat humble pie鈥� is a 19th-century expression, however, and at that point in history the umbles were decidedly 鈥渢he food of inferiors,鈥� as one lexicographer put it in 1830. Humble as in 鈥渕odest鈥� and umble as in 鈥渙ffal鈥� sound the same in h-dropping dialects of English as well, so whichever way you slice it 鈥渆ating humble pie鈥� signifies 鈥渕aking a humble apology and accepting humiliation.鈥�

Next, we鈥檒l try to figure out what apple pies have to do with neatness, and why people strive to bring home the bacon.