My favorite banana pudding in Nashville

Really good banana puddings are usually associated with church potlucks, meat and threes and, of course, your grandmother. My grandmother used to buy stalks of bananas and hang them in the hallway of her old rooming house to ripen them for her famous Sunday-size puddings.

Since food is the richest of memories, all banana puddings have a long way to go to stand up to my Big Mama’s banana pudding, which combined creamy custard layered with sliced, not-too-ripe bananas and vanilla wafers and was topped with beautiful clouds of oven-browned meringue. No artificial Jell-O pudding or cool whip allowed.