Chocolate Pudding Pie

As someone who has tasted and enjoyed a wide range well conceived desserts, I marveled at the eagerness I had Saturday night for a supermarket chocolate pudding pie. It looked good, but that, I kept telling myself as all my fellow picnickers were digging in, scooping as much with fingers as cutlery, and seldom onto a surface other than palm or lip, should be deceiving.

It should, too. Of course the store bought pie might have the sheen of delightfulness, but one must expect the taste of fabricated corn syrup and mere flavorings of chocolate. But, at the half way point, I caved. I sliced a wedge into a bowl, and picked up my fork. It was delicious. I was so frustrated! How can I be able to wish I’d cut a larger wedge of something I dared not read the label of?

This question will haunt me, but I have two possible explanations. One, I don’t really care for chocolate, so anytime I taste chocolaty food I am pretty well resigned to only being slightly responsive. Curiously, I much prefer chocolaty things to chocolate itself. I’ll take the cake, not the candy, or in this case the pudding, not the sprinkles. Two, I had just spent two days at a conference about the weighty subjects of contemporary slavery and human trafficking in the world. If I could guess at the participants’ reactions, I bet a lot of comforting pudding was in need afterwards, and I am not exempt from that.