As far as you know…
By Anonymous
When I was a child, I ate my last pudding cup and didn’t know it. That was until October 5th, 2025, when for many Angelenos, the lids drew back and the taste of pudding returned.
TikTok account @puddingmitgabel.la posted a flyer and 100,000 views + 2,000 shares later, people started arriving at LA State Historic Park with their pudding cups in hand.
The vast majority of participants brought Snack Pack or Jello brand pudding (a staple in American elementary school lunch rooms) while some brought homemade puddings in glass jars, or Japanese style Pucchin pudding (which resembles more of a flan or creme caramel). Some didn’t bring any pudding, and people with extras shared their cups so everyone could be included. What everyone had in common was their utensil of choice. At 2:00 PM, they ate pudding.
With forks.
Let’s go back to four days prior, when I arrived at the office and started describing this TikTok trend to my coworkers.
“So there’s this thing in Germany right now, where kids are meeting up in parks and eating pudding with forks. It’s called pudding mit gabel and I swear if I get one more TikTok about it I’m just organize one in LA because someone’s gotta do it.”
“Okay, so do it,” my coworker responded.
Pudding mit gabel (literally translating to “pudding with fork,”) originated in Karlsruhe, Germany about a month before the trend arrived in Los Angeles. An anonymous creator posted a paper flyer in the streets of Karlsruhe announcing the “eating pudding with fork meet-up”, a format that feels quite familiar to America’s lookalike contest craze (sparked by New York City’s Timothee Chalamet Lookalike Contest in October 2024).
About 30 minutes into the work day, with no corporate work being done thus far, I had created a TikTok account using my company email address, created a flyer, and posted it on TikTok for the world to embrace. About 10 minutes after that, I grumbled to my coworker, “Alright, I’m tired of this,” and logged out of the account.
Later that night, I logged back in and was amused by a handful of comments on the post. People had resonated with the flyer, especially the “What To Bring” section, which listed pudding, a fork, and the phrase“German vibes.” I posted a couple more times that night, off the high of positive reinforcement, flaunting “#german” in the caption to keep the nonsensical Western European energy of pudding mit gabel, and telling participants to
bring a “German sense of community” to prove that I’m no one-trick pony when it comes to my hashtags.
I never planned on actually attending the event. At least not on time. At 2:00 PM, I was in a Vons refrigerator aisle, staring at my phone.
“You don’t need me, you have each other,” I typed, and hit post. By then, I had realized I couldn’t miss out being a part of the community I had created. That didn’t mean I had to show up on time, or identify myself to anyone as the event’s organizer.
Getting out of my car, a guy walking by immediately looked over towards me and my friends and said, “Oh, are you here for pudding
mit gabel? They’re over there. There are a lot of people. Have a good time!” Following some quick small talk, we learned that he had already joined the party, ate his pudding, and now had to go
catch a movie. King.
He wasn’t kidding about the turnout being surprisingly impressive. About 70 people were seated under the shade of the park’s bridge (an unintentional but incredibly considerate move on my part), and the chatter was lively. Dogs, children, parents, young adults, old adults, and middle-aged adults all gathered together united by a desire to be like the Germans and eat pudding with forks.
I did spot a fallen pop-up banner on the grass in front of the group. It was a protein pudding company that was attempting to profit from pure, whimsical community members (name something more Los Angeles). However, some attendees filled me in that they were handing out free samples, and that earns back some points for providing something to the people. Shortly after I arrived, they rolled up their banner and headed out.
If any of you care to disprove my statement of being the first in the United States, the only other publicly organized pudding mit gabel that I could find was a promotional video made by Northeastern University student workers and their Husky mascot on October 1st. I do not count this as a real pudding mit gabel meet up since: 1) it was seemingly privately held, 2) was created for marketing purposes for the University instead of community building, and 3) I also do not support giving chocolate to dogs.
Slag Magazine 
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