Pudding has a magical quality. One spoonful of rich, creamy pudding instantly makes us feel like children again. Remember when all of life's happiness seemed to rest solely upon the questions "chocolate or vanilla" or "Do you want extra Nilla wafers?" Remember the splendor of scraping every last bit of pudding from the bowl? Or, if Mama wasn't looking, licking the bowl clean with your tongue? What about the delicious, slightly chewy hardened skin formed on top of the pudding cups?

Pudding has long been regarded as a good food for the young or infirm. (I love the concept of chocolate pudding as a health food.) The earliest puddings were boiled in a bag or cloth. The word pudding actually comes from the word "boudin," a type of sausage, and refers to a mixture with a soft, puddinglike consistency or a sausagelike preparation made with minced meat or various other ingredients stuffed into a bag or skin and boiled. Baked and chilled puddings came about even later.

LOUIE FAVORITE/AJC (ENLARGE)

These updated puddings have old-fashioned roots: Bananas Foster Banana Pudding (clockwise from foreground), Homemade Chocolate Pudding, Wash Day Pudding, Angel Pudding, Woodford Pudding With Butterscotch Dip, and Rock Cream.

RECIPES: • Virginia Willis' Bananas Foster Banana Pudding • Virginia Willis' Homemade Chocolate Pudding • Muddie's Angel Pudding • Zennie Bailey's Wash Day Pudding • Woodford Pudding With Butterscotch Dip

Puddings are classed as savory and served with meat, such as Yorkshire pudding — which is more similar to a bread or popover than anything we think of as pudding — and those served as a sweet or dessert.

Although many in Britain and the former British Empire consider puddings as any dessert, we deem those containing flour or a cereal product such as cornstarch or tapioca, that has been boiled, steamed or baked. The creamy, rich dessert most Americans and Southerners think of today as pudding is very closely related to egg-based custards such as creme anglaise and pastry cream.

We've gathered some old family recipes from readers who have contributed to our ongoing Southern Recipe Restoration Project and re-created them so everyone can enjoy once again a little bit of that childhood magic. Maybe you will recognize an old friend.