The last course of a meal, may be cheese, fruits or sweets.
The dessert that refers to the sweet treat that concludes a meal has no connection with the desert that appears in Sahara Desert, a word that derives from the Latin word deserere, meaning to abandon. However, dessert—the sweet treat—does have a connection with the other desert, the one appearing in phrases such as “He got his just deserts.” Both words take their origin from the Latin noun servus, meaning slave. From this Latin noun came the Latin verb servire, meaning to serve, which entered French as servir and was there combined with the negating prefix de to form desservir, meaning to un-serve or, by extension, to remove. This French desservir then evolved into the term dessert, which first referred to the act of removing the dishes and cutlery at the end of a meal, and then came to be identified with the sweet dish brought to the table after it had been cleared. The French desservir, incidentally, also gave rise to the English word disservice; this shared origin means that dessert (a yummy food) and disservice (an offensive behaviour) are essentially two faces of the same word. Dessert and disservice both appeared in English at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Long before all this, the desert in just deserts arose when the Latin servire was combined with the prefix de, used this time not to negate the verb but to intensify it; the resulting new word, deservire, thus did not mean to un-serve, but rather to serve really well. Via French, the Latin deservire entered English at the end of the thirteenth century as desert, meaning well-deserved prize or suitable reward. Also via French, the original Latin servus developed in the early thirteenth century into servant, a lackey who filled the cup his master emptied, and emptied the pot his master filled.
The term “dessert” finds its origin in the French language as “le dessert.” It pertains to the final course of a formal dinner, traditionally encompassing an assortment of fresh, dried, and crystallized fruit varieties. Occasionally, ices, petits fours, or fancy cookies may also be included in the dessert course. The fruit may be presented in dishes as part of the overall decoration scheme, or it may be served separately after clearing the table of all superfluous dishes, glasses, and cutlery. Prior to serving, a dessert knife, spoon, and plate will be positioned in front of each guest. Typically, the selection of fresh fruit comprises tangerines, oranges, apples, pears, peaches, pineapples, bananas, or black and white grapes. Moreover, dates, raisins, figs, almonds, crystallized fruits, and preserved ginger may be served. If ices or similar sweet dishes are to be offered, they ought to be served before the fruit course. In modern times, the term “dessert” encompasses any sweet course, including tarts, mousses, pies, trifles, cheesecakes, fruit compote, meringues, pancakes, and profiteroles.