How important is dessert?

For me, very. There must be something sweet after dinner. More often than not, it's dark chocolate, but pastry is preferred.

Strange as it is for me to imagine, I've heard that there are those who don't need dessert. What do they eat after dinner? Cheese?

Is dessert important to you?

Dessert is the reward for eating my vegetables.

I never touch the stuff. I've almost completely outgrown my sweet tooth. Even a piece of sugarfree mint gum can be uncomfortably sweet. After dinner, I'll typically eat... lunch the following day.

Frankly I'd rather use my stomach real estate on dinner. I much prefer savory over sweet.

I was rarely allowed sweets as a child, and have almost never craved them since. If it's summer and there are fruit laden desserts around, I'll order only if someone else eats the bulk of it, one or two bites is generally sufficient. 99% of the time, I take a pass.

Put me in the savory column.

I certainly don't have the sweet tooth I once did, but I still love sweets & desserts. I merely leans toward less sugar in them and look for more interesting flavors, even mixing in savory elements. And for whatever reason, I just feel much better after a meal when I've had some dessert, no matter how small.

And for you pure "savory" fans, perhaps I'll just stick a fresh baked pie under your nose and put you to the test.

I rarely cook outside of barbecuing or grilling, but I love to bake. To the point that I've taken several classes at the French Pastry School and a nice semester-long chocolate class at my local community college. That said, I try to keep dessert consumption low more often than not for calorie-watching reasons. If I'm out somewhere that isn't known for good desserts, or only does standards like tiramisu or vanilla creme brulee, I'll probably pass. If I was wandering around an unfamiliar city on vacation though, and had to choose between a nice looking sandwich spot and a nice looking bakery or patisserie, the desserts are winning pretty much every time.

I'm firmly in the dessert loving camp. I've got to have something sweet to cap off a meal and help maintain my girlish figure. Remember stressed spell backwards is desserts.

Dinner is just an obstacle on the path to dessert. If I ever become diabetic, I'll just stop eating bread.

On occasion, I'll eat dessert first. This is a mistake, because I'll still crave something sweet after dinner. And then I'll think, now there's more than 24 hours before the next one.

I love desserts. When I was growing up there was always something sweet after dinner even if it was a few cookies. Now when I go out to eat I rarely order dessert unless its shared because the food is too filling. I do bake and from time to time make desserts but truthfully I am trying to lose weight so desserts are rare now so I do not eat them on a regular basis.

Not ever been a dessert eater and always refuse it when visiting. They all know better than to ask anymore! Growing up in the 50' and 60's my mom was a wonderful and inventive cook and baker. She's scour all those women's magazine's and make her own adaptations but I still would never eat dessert or a dessert item at any time of the day while she was putting out Mexican wedding cookies, kolachki (sp), cakes and pies. I would eat dough and mix but never a baked item. The salvation for her was that my dad ran a huge ACE hardware store and that both my parents were very active in the American legion. Dad's employees always had something for break room daily and birthdays/holidays for employees and the Legion never wanted for baked goods or a volunteer for Fish Fry.

Dessert was a special thing in our house when I was growing up, and to this day I don't give it or sweets in general much thought. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be ice cream, but even that can and does sit in the freezer for months without my having any taste for it.

I never grew up with dessert, and I almost never eat dessert. I can probably count on one hand, definitely two, how often I eat dessert after a meal in a year. I'll eat sweets every once in a while, but separate from a meal. I don't know where people find the room for dessert.

Binko wrote:I don't know where people find the room for dessert.

True champs find a way

If dessert is placed in front of me after dinner, I will eat it. If I am cooking, I never make dessert part of the meal. On occassion, I will eat something sweet by itself in the middle of the day, but rarely. I am just not much of a sugar eater. What is weird though, is I sometimes have an almost insatiable desire for sugar. It is some kind of low blood sugar attack.

Mr. Pie mentioned the other day that he and his family didn't eat dessert every night after dinner. He didn't know any kids that did, and was shocked that I did and still do. He said if he had dessert every night, it would no longer be a treat. And I believe that's when I started laughing and blacked out from lack of air. I think if I ever declined dessert when I was a yute, my mother would have taken my temperature.

Only nine more hours until pie.

I was thinking back when I visited the grandparents, as a child. Dessert was always part of the meal and it was always the same thing. My mother's parents owned a dairy farm in Canada and dessert was always hand-churned vanilla or peach ice cream topped with berries. The berries were fresh when in season and home-canned when not. There were blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, black raspberries and wild strawberries. The wild strawberries were a special treat. They were tiny and very sweet, unlike what you buy in supermarkets these days, which are gigantic and flavorless. It took hours to pick just a few cups full. Of course, the cousins all took turns cranking the ice cream churn and carefully extracting the berries from the thorny bushes. The ice cream always tasted better when your arms were cramping up and covered in bloody scratches. Sometimes the ice cream was accompanied by salt and sugar roasted filberts picked off the hazelnut trees in the driveway and baked in the wood-burning stove (a Canadian version of Beer-Nuts). For the adults, the ice cream was always accompanied by a small shot of flavored vodka (Russians will take any excuse). On special occassions we would have a plum crumble, which was semi-sweet, bordering on sour. That was topped with rich homemade ice cream. But when not visiting the farm, we hardly ever ate desert, unless it was melon or a fruit plate or the occasional rhubarb pie. Then there were those special summer nights when the sun was up late and we would all pile in the Woody and head to the local drive-in ice cream stand for dip-tops, which were cones of soft custard ice cream encased in a candy coating of chocolate, strawberry or (my favorite) butterscotch.

Dessert is the most important part of the meal for me. If a restaurant has amazing food, but lackluster dessert that definitely clouds my experience.

It's not an everyday thing for me, but we do cake for birthdays, pie for holidays, ice cream during the warm months and muffins/cookies in cooler weather. I'll make it, and it's there, and if people feel like having some, they do, and if not, they don't. I find a single small scoop of homemade, not-very-sweet ice cream in a ramekin is quite satisfying on a hot summer evening, and a few spicy molasses cookies with a mug of tea hits the spot on a chilly winter evening. But sweets tend to be more of a midafternoon nosh these days for us, a little thing as a break between chores or tasks, rather than a must-have after dinner.

However, when eating out, if there's something chocolate that looks good, I will go for it!

How is this even a question?

Must. Have. Dessert.