[Sca-cooks] flan vs. custard

[Stefan li Rous]

> I haven't seen the recipe, but the derivation of the word "flan" is  
> from Old
> German "fladen" into Late Latin "fladon" or  "flado" and then into Old
> French "flaon."  The meaning is "flat cake."  Modernly, the word  
> refers to a
> tart of custard, fruit or cheese, a custard with caramel topping,  
> or a metal
> blank for pressing a coin.
>
> Bear
>
>> Why is this called a flan? What I am familiar with as a flan is  
>> custard
>> with
>> carmel and if there is a pie crust it is custard pie. Please explain?
>> De

Last year(?), we had a good discussion about flan and I saved a  
number of those messages for the Florilegium. However, as often  
happens, I ran into the problem of how to differentiate a recipe or  
comments about flan, from ones about a custard and vice-versa. I  
don't remember a good definition like Bear's though. What this has  
meant is that those flan messages still aren't in the Florilegium  
because I never could figure out whether to add them to the custard  
file which is there or start a flan file. And if the latter, how to  
figure out which messages go into which file.

Going by what Bear appears to be saying above, it sounds like I  
should just use one custard file. But often I go by common beliefs  
rather than a technical definition, since even if I use the  
technically correct term, it still doesn't help if folks can't find  
what they are looking for. And sometimes I just have to split a file  
because it is getting too big (usually around 100K, or 33 pages. What  
a standard stapler can handle).

So, if you were looking for a flan recipe in the Florilegium, where  
would you look? Or is there some other major dividing line between  
types of custards which I should use as a separator than flans vs.  
custards?  Looking at the custards-msg file though, I do see that it  
is only 17K, so at least for now, I may just add the info and recipes  
on flans to there.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****