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ARROW-CIRCLE-RIGHT The origins of banana pudding can be traced back to the late 19th century, with an early recipe appearing in an 1888 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine. Inspired by the English trifle, this decadent dessert featured layers of silken custard, sponge cake and sliced bananas. Banana pudding gained widespread popularity in 1921, thanks to Mrs. Laura Kerley of Bloomington, Illinois, who shared the first-known printed recipe for the modern version, which replaced the sponge cake with readily available vanilla wafers. The National Biscuit Company, now Nabisco, capitalized on the trend by printing their version of a banana pudding recipe on the packaging of their Vanilla Wafer cookies. In 1967, Nabisco rebranded their cookies as “Nilla Wafers,” a name derived from “vanilla.”

Photo by Romney Caruso

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