Layers of vanilla custard, sliced banana and wafer biscuits under whipped cream or meringue, the non-negotiable dessert of Chattanooga's Southern tables from fried chicken joints to barbecue counters.
Banana pudding colonised the South once refrigerated rail brought cheap bananas through ports like New Orleans and grocers' wafers met home custard. It settled into church cookbooks by the mid-20th century and never left the region's meat-and-threes and barbecue houses. In Chattanooga it is the default ending at fried chicken and barbecue rooms alike, served in a scoop from a deep tray, the wafers softened to cake somewhere overnight.
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Also in: Birmingham, Charlotte, Nashville.