Bill Cosby? ;)

In the old days, before T.V. and such, families would gather for meals and special occasions. They would have a pudding for desert. The dinner conversation would wrap up over pudding. Therfore "the proof is in the pudding!" See?

This common truncated version of an old saying conjures up visions of poking around in your dessert looking for prizes, but “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” means that you don’t really know that your dessert has come out right until you taste it. http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/pudding.html It has been clipped down from the original phrase which was: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating." It means that the true value or quality of something can only be judged when it's put to use or tried and tested. The meaning is often summed up as: "Results are what count...it's not how you start, but how you finish." http://www.clarion-call.org/yeshua/pudding/proof.htm As another recent instance, the Boston Herald had this in its issue of 3 February 2004: “While the team’s first Super Bowl victory back in 2002 could be explained away by some skeptics as a fluke, the second victory is the proof in the pudding in cementing the Pats’ status as the cream of the NFL crop.“ But examples can be found in American newspapers at least as far back as the 1920s and it became relatively common from the middle 1950s onwards. Slightly different versions also turn up from time to time, such as this about a charity considering its links with Michael Jackson, “Until there’s some proof in the pudding, we will continue to remain neutral” (The Grand Rapids Press, 30 November 2003), and about an election in Canada, “I guess that the proof in the pudding will be on Oct. 2” (Toronto Star, 29 September 2003). The principal trouble with the proof is in the pudding is that it makes no sense. What has happened is that writers half-remember the proverb as the proof of the pudding, which is also unintelligible unless you know the full form from which the tag was taken, and have modified it in various ways in unsuccessful attempts to turn it into something sensible. They wouldn’t make this mistake if they knew two important facts. The full proverb is indeed the proof of the pudding is in the eating and proof has the sense of “test” (as it also has, or used to have, in phrases such as proving-ground and printer’s proof). The proverb literally says that you won’t know whether food has been cooked properly until you try it. Or, putting it figuratively, don’t assume that something is in order or believe what you are told, but judge the matter by testing it; it’s much the same philosophy as in seeing is believing and actions speak louder than words. The proverb is ancient — it has been traced back to 1300 and was popularised by Cervantes in his Don Quixote of 1605. It’s sad that it has lasted so long, only to be corrupted in modern times. http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-pro1.htm Meaning: To fully test something you need to experience it. Origin: This phrase is just shorthand for 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. That makes sense at least, whereas the shortened version really doesn't mean anything. Nor does the often quoted incorrect version 'the proof is in the pudding'. Many people fail to see the sense of any of these though. The meaning become clear when it is realised that proof here means test. The more common meaning of proof in our day and age is the noun form, with the meaning 'demonstrating something to be true' - as in a mathematical or legal proof. The verb form, meaning 'to test' is less often used these days, although it does survive in several commonly used phrases: 'the exception that proves the rule', 'proof-read', 'proving-ground', etc. Clearly the distinction between these two forms of the word was originally quite slight and the proof in a 'showing to be true' sense is merely the successful outcome of a test of whether a proposition is correct or not. The proof of the pudding is in the eating is a very old proverb. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations dates it back to the early 14th century, albeit without offering any supporting evidence for that view. The phrase is widely attributed to Cervantes' in The History of Don Quixote. That appears to be by virtue of an early 18th century translation by Peter Motteux, which has been criticised by later scholars as 'a loose paraphrase' and 'Franco-Cockney'. Crucially the Spanish word for pudding - 'budín', doesn't appear in the original Spanish text. The earliest text that there is supporting documentary evidence, albeit itself being a translation, this time from French to English', is Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux's Le Lutrin, 1682: "The proof of th' Pudding's seen i' th' eating." http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/proof-of-the-pudding.html

back in late 16th century in eastern europa it was forbiden to drink alcohol, as homes where being searched people would often hide there "spirits" in there pudding,therefore the "proof" [i.e. alcohol content] was in the pudding.