Dessert

A dessert is a sweet dish that usually concludes a meal. By extension, the word also covers any sweet food eaten at another time. The term comes from the French verb desservir, meaning to clear the table, and its place in the menu has changed considerably over the centuries.

History

Sweetness has accompanied meals since antiquity. According to the sources, sweets were offered to the gods in ancient Mesopotamia and India, and the Greek historian Herodotus noted that Persian banquets featured many desserts, more varied in their sweet offerings than the main dishes. For a long time, the basic sweeteners were dried fruit and honey.

Sugar cane changed this picture. It was grown and refined in India before 500 BC and was crystallised by about 500 CE, which made it easier to transport. Its use spread through Asia and the Mediterranean, but in Europe it did not become widespread until the twelfth century or later, through the Crusades and then colonisation. Even then it was so expensive that only the wealthy could indulge on special occasions. Local sugar production in the European Middle Ages widened the range of sweet baking, and the first published apple pie recipe dates from 1381.

In France between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the dessert was the final stage of the meal and was made up of items from the storeroom: fresh, stewed, preserved and dried fruit, nuts, cheese, biscuits and wafers and, from the mid-eighteenth century, ices and small cakes. Sweet dishes made in the kitchen, such as freshly baked pastries, meringues, custards and puddings, were served earlier, in the entremets stage. Over the twentieth century these were gradually included among the desserts. The tables of European courts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries displayed creams, tarts, fruit, jellies and meringues, designed to show wealth and technical skill.

The Industrial Revolution made it possible to mass-produce sweet foods that could be processed, canned and packaged. Frozen desserts became popular from the 1920s onwards. Today dessert is also a large commercial sector, with ice cream parlours that already existed before 1800, specialist shops, advertising campaigns and television programmes devoted to baking. In the United States, apple pie and cheesecake were among the most ordered desserts in restaurants in 2012.

In the Spanish-speaking world, many preparations use ingredients such as coconut, guava, papaya, pumpkin or maize, with variations from country to country. This is the case with cocada, tres leches and mazamorra.

Culture

In everyday life, dessert marks the end of a meal and, in many homes and restaurants, it is the moment to share something special. Some regions have little tradition of it. Across much of central and western Africa, a meal is typically finished with fruit or with a sweet sauce, and in Asia sweets are often eaten as snacks between meals. In Australia, fruit is a common way to end a meal, while cakes, pies and cookies are often reserved for special occasions.

Desserts are closely tied to celebrations. Cakes accompany birthdays, weddings and anniversaries, and in many countries sweets follow the religious calendar. In Spain, torrijas and buñuelos de viento are linked to Lent and Holy Week, while polvorones belong to Christmas. In Mexico, calabaza en tacha is one of the most popular desserts and is traditionally prepared as an offering on the Day of the Dead. In Peru, turrón de Doña Pepa is associated with the festival of the Lord of Miracles. In Colombia, bocadillo, made from guava, is wrapped in dried bijao leaves and sold in rustic wooden boxes when it is produced by hand.

Regional variety is wide. In Germany, the Berliner and the Black Forest cake are part of the national baking identity. In Italy, tiramisu and gelato, which contains less fat than ordinary ice cream, are international references. In Brazil, papaya cream with ice cream was a fashion in the mid-1990s, although its popularity has since declined. In Colombia, cholado is a fruit salad with shaved ice, syrups and condensed milk, typical of the Valle del Cauca. In Costa Rica, tres leches is eaten mainly in the Central Valley, and in Venezuela, quesillo and bienmesabe appear among its traditional desserts.

Desserts also appear in everyday bakery consumption, from pastries and churros to biscuits and madeleines. The industry has developed versions with less fat, with natural fruit or without refined sugar, while traditional home recipes remain alive. Desserts tend to contain high amounts of sugar and fat, which explains their energy content, and they form part of an eating culture that combines pleasure and habit.

Trivia