[Sca-cooks] "Custard" Crust?

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- kingstaste at mindspring.com wrote:
> I just saw a factoid on "Good Eats" that said before 1600, the word
> "custard" refered to the crust and not the filling.  I've never seen this,
> does anybody recognize this referenc?
> Christianna

>From the Oxford English Dictionary:

custard

[app. a perverted form of CRUSTADE, with which it is connected by the forms crustarde and 
custad(e. The fashion of the thing appears to have altered about 1600.] 

    1.    a. Formerly, a kind of open pie containing pieces of meat or fruit covered with a
preparation of broth or milk, thickened with eggs, sweetened, and seasoned with spices, etc. =
CRUSTADE.    b. Now, a dish made with eggs beaten up and mixed with milk to a stiff consistency,
sweetened, and baked; also a similar preparation served in a liquid form. 
 
  [c1390 Crustarde: see CRUSTADE.] c1450 Two Cookery-bks. 74 Custarde..Custard lumbarde [Recipes
identical with those on pp. 50, 51, for Crustade and Crustade lumbard]. c1460 J. RUSSELL Bk.
Nurture 802 Bakemete, or Custade Costable, when eggis & crayme be geson. 1530 PALSGR. 211/2
Custarde, dariolle [‘Darioles, small pasties filled with flesh, hearbes, and spices, mingled, and
minced together’ (Cotgr.)]. a1592 GREENE Jas. IV (1861) 208 Cut it me like the battlements Of a
custard, full of round holes. 1628 EARLE Microcosm., Cook (Arb.) 47 Quaking Tarts, and quiuering
Custards, and such milke sop Dishes. 1665 Phil. Trans. I. 118 White like the white of a Custard.
1688 R. HOLME Armoury in Babees Bk. (1868) 211, Custard, open Pies, or without lids, filled with
Eggs and Milk; called also Egg-Pie. 1740 SOMERVILLE Hobbinol iii. (1749) 158 The Custard's jelly'd
Flood. 1864 MRS. CARLYLE Lett. III. 231 To take always the new milk and the custard at twelve. 
1887 R. N. CAREY Uncle Max xv. 114 [Her] custards and flaky crust were famed in the village.

crustade

obs.

[Evidently a. F. croustade, although this is not given by Godefroy, and is known to Hatzfeld only
as a modern word after It. crostata ‘a kinde of daintie pye, chewet, or such paste meate’ 
(Florio), f. crostare to encrust: see -ADE.] 

    A sort of rich pie, made of flesh, eggs, herbs, spices, etc. enclosed in a crust. 
 
  ?c1390 Form of Cury No. 154 Crustardes of Flessh. ibid. No. 156 Crustardes of Fysshe. c1420
Liber Cocorum 40 Crustate of flesshe. c1440 Anc. Cookery in Househ. Ord. (1790) 452 Let bake hom 
as thow woldes bake flaunes, or crustades.
 

Huette


Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for 
they shall never cease to be amused.


		
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