National Dessert Day.

 National Dessert Day. 

You've been longing for this day. It's been one of those days you've been looking forward to for ages. In fact it's mouth watering, immensely pleasurable and palatable. Your taste buds have been waiting for this day. So here we are Ladies and Gentlemen. It's a day of glorious culinary satisfaction, the pinnacle of pinnacles. It won't get any better because we do love this indulgence. It's our guilty pleasure and we make no secret of the fact. 

So today is National Dessert Day. Oh yes it is. It could hardly be anything else. It's a day of gorging on gorgeous puddings, the kind of sweet confections that you might have thought some of us had completely forgotten about. It followed b a well balanced meal full of proteins, heavy cholesterol and loads of naughty calories that we shouldn't really eat but know will make us feel good about ourselves. We'll pile on the pounds and stones and the bathroom scales will reveal the embarrassing truth.

School days were your reference point on this subject. After a huge lunch which was admittedly delicious,  you were now faced with the wondrous temptation. Do you devour a Spotty Dick, a currant based pudding that still remind you of what it was like to be a kid. Then that same Spotty Dick would be submerged by gallons of custard and you were transported to the land of pleasure. Little did you know it then but you were subconsciously adding several tyres of fat to your waistline and you were carrying too much timber.  And then there was the richly celebrated Jam Roly Poly. What a stunning idea. 

We all love to eat desserts whether it be a tasty chocolate cake in a plush five star restaurant, that famous Black Forest Gateau so synonymous with the 1970s or something that may remind you of those fabled school dinners. What on earth was semolina about or rice pudding ? What possessed the great nutritionists or food scientists of the time to assume that either of those desserts would leave you smiling and exhilarated. 

And yet all those years later desserts of every kind and variety are still regarded with all of those contradictory emotions that some of us are scratching our heads over. On any given day, all desserts and puddings are fabulous and too good to be true. And yet all desserts should be banned and forbidden now because all of that sugar can only lead to the road to ruination. We are still reaching the same conclusions but, in essence, desserts give a boost to those whose spirits may well have been dampened by a sad or unfortunate event in your lives, widely known as comfort food.  

But whether you're out with friends and family in the local Toby Carvery, pub, hotel, guest house, restaurant, or a seaside cafe next to the amusement arcades, desserts are far too tempting. Could somebody pass the menu because that apple pie or coffee cake with nuts has to be consumed immediately? We all love desserts, the bigger the better, vast quantities of dessert or pudding. Somewhere though in our minds lurks the lingering fear and suspicion. Is it good for us or not. And yet none of us care because we vow not to have another one since our stomachs will slowly expand and you'll pay the penalty for it later. 

Back in the old days, sweet trolleys in restaurants would glide around the aisles of soft carpet which were like chariots of glorious cakes that even Marie Antionette would have approved of. There was Baked Alaska< huge slabs of marzipan, magical meringues with oceans of cream, strawberry cheesecakes and then the desserts so evocative of childhood and perhaps adolescence. You really shouldn't be devouring them with relish but you do because you love them and can't really get enough of them.

As a kid your lovely and late mum and dad would take you that famous food and drink restaurant known as Lyons Corner House in Marble Arch, London's glittering West End. At the time it must have felt as if you were going to tea with the Royal Family. The Lyons Corner House was a magnificent and swanky, five star restaurant with all bells and whistles. You didn't need a special appointment to be there and your opportunity to enjoy the whole eating experience just seemed far too good to resist. 

As soon as you walked into the Lyons Corner House, the sounds could almost be heard at nearby Oxford Circus. There was laughter in abundance, steam pouring from the kitchen, voices bellowing  and often melodious. Then there were the pots and pans, crockery and cutlery rattling, clattering, echoing before another set of spoons were accidentally sent crashing to the ground. But that kitchen was like a paradise of  foodie surprises, gastronomic feasts which were lovingly prepared and then delivered to your table. 

You were told that before you were born, the Lyons Corner House would hold gentle orchestral music, small groups of musicians who entertained with you piano keys rippling across the dining room with both delicacy and decorum. It was another age of course, of fine wines, waiters and waitresses pouring out Beaujolais wine that had been matured in a French vineyard for ages. There was champagne if you could afford it but we did for both birthdays or anniversaries because that seemed appropriate and quite elegant. 

Then you remembered your late and lovely mum whose speciality was either a profiterole or rum baba oozing the most beautiful aroma. To this day people still eat profiteroles because it used to swim in a river of cream, pastry and chocolate with perhaps a couple of raspberries for good measure. It didn't really occur to you why your mum was so deeply enamoured of both these desserts. It was always her preferred choice of sweetness and none could possibly argue the point. Mum was always right and indeed she was. 

Then there was your favourite dessert at Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Ultimately, it became an established favourite because it was just divine and sent wonderful messages down to your digestive system. It was honey cake. Now honey cake was first sampled at school dinners. The irony was though that you counted yourself quite privileged if you were on the right table to get double helpings of honey cake. Invariably this was never the case so you would sigh with despair and just grumble away in deep frustration.

Now honey cake at Rosh Hashanah was just the most exquisite of all desserts because by the time Yom Kippur and the Fast had come around you knew what to expect. Having gone without food or drink for 25 hours, honey cake was the perfect medicine, the best antidote to stress or hunger pangs. You would come rushing out of your synagogue and there they were, plates of honey cake which would send a surge of relief and electricity through your body. 

And finally there is sticky toffee pudding with chocolate custard or rhubarb and custard, anything that sings on your mouth as soon as you take a spoonful. What about fruit cake, Dundee cake, birthday cakes, chocolate eclairs, or your barmitzvah cake which if memory serves me correctly, was full of icing and ornate designs around the bottom tier of the cake? This cake towered majestically over everybody and you can remember some of the cake being donated to charity, so enormous was it. There were four or five tiers of cake and nobody was ever going to eat all of that in one sitting. 

So there you are Ladies and Gentlemen. Have a wonderful National Dessert Day. Just embrace the day as if it were one of those chocolate fountains at parties or barmitzvahs. Desserts are, quite literally, the icing on the cake, something we like to finish off our main meal with because it would be terrible not to and you'd never forgive yourselves if you didn't. You'll regret it and know it.  So go on treat yourself. Desserts are meant to be savoured,  salivated over, digested carefully before that first crunch of biscuit in the cake. Oh what a taste sensation. Have that last fondant or tiramisu or even that Ice cream Sundae with hundreds and thousands and don't forget to order the trifle. Life is indeed sweet.