PUDDING  , a

term, now of rather wide application, for a dish consisting of boiled flour enclosing or containing meat, vegetables or fruit, or of batter, rice, sago or other farinaceous foods boiled or baked with milk and eggs . Properly a pudding should be one boiled in a cloth or bag . There are countless varieties, of which the most familiar are the Christmas plum-pudding, the Yorkshire pudding and the suet pudding . The word was originally and is still so used in Scotland for the entrails of the pig or other animal stuffed with meat, minced, flavoured and mixed with oatmeal and boiled . The etymology is obscure . The French boudin occurs in the Scottish original sense at the same time as poding (13th century) in English . Boudin has been connected with Italian boldone and Latin botulus, sausage, but the origins of these words are quite doubtful . Attempts have been made to find the origin in a stem pud-, to swell, cf . " podgy," L . Ger . Pudde-wurst, black-pudding, &c .