[Sca-cooks] LIBER DE COQUINA: A brief history of flan

JIMCHEVAL at aol.com JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
Fri Feb 1 21:48:11 PST 2013


A recent query has got me re-visiting the Liber de Coquina, which, tucked  
away in its Latin, has a number of interesting finds, such as recipes for  
ravioli and what appears to be an ancestor of lasagne ("lasana"). It also  
includes an innocuous enough looking recipe for... flan.

Which is actually kind of a big deal. But first, a word about  flan.

The first mention of flan seems to be in Fortunatus' hagiography of  Queen 
Radegund, who hid her (suitably ascetic) barley bread *sub fladone* - that  
is, under the *flado* (flan). In later years, "fladone" would become 
"flaon",  then "flan". At this point it is said to have been a flatcake ("flado" is 
 related to "flat"; even today one meaning of "flan" is a flat surface used 
in  minting).

Somewhere over time it evolved until by the late medieval period it was  a 
cream (or cheese) flavored shell. 
This was probably an incremental  process. A 13th century Arab cookbook 
from Baghdad offers a recipe for  *iflagun*, which is said to be a Frankish 
specialty: Take flour and  knead it. Let it rise. Make a round base of it, 
raised on the sides. Then take  an egg, break it in a terrine and put in it a 
little salt, crushed pepper,  ginger, anise and a little cumin. Mix all this 
with the egg. Add fresh rue  leaves and little bits of crushed cheese. Add 
saffron to it and spread it on the  base. All this must be of a good 
thickness. Put in the oven.
 
In offering the French translation for this by Rodinson, the Belgian  
scholar Liliane Plouvier, calls this post-Crusades confection a  "Carolingian 
flan". Plouvier is an excellent researcher, but she can be cavalier  about 
periods; personally my guess (that's all it is) is that it was the Arabs  who 
had the idea of adding cheese to the Frankish flatcake and raising the sides  
(pizza-style) to contain the filling.
 
By the late medieval period, the sides had risen into a bowl and the flan  
was common enough to be required in some cases as a rent. This may be why 
books  like the Viandier, the Menagier and the Enseignemenz do not even bother 
to offer  a plain recipe for it, only offering variations (for Lent) using 
eels or fish  (apparently to - ! - imitate the taste of cheese); without 
bothering to  offer one for plain old flan.
 
Now, here's this from the Liber de Coquina:
 
"Regarding a cup or small cake of milk, for a milk cup, take firm dough and 
 make a cup like bread out of small pieces [?]; and put it a little in an 
oven,  long enough to make it hard. Then, take milk mixed together with 
beaten eggs and  saffron and put it in the said cup, but not too full. And cook 
properly and  eat."
 
4. -- De copo sive de pastillo de lacte: ad copum de lacte, accipe  pastam 
duram et fac copum sicut panem unius pastilli; et pone in furno   parum, ut 
aliquantulum dure fiat. Deinde, accipe lac cum ovis batutis simul  mixtis et 
safranum et proice in dicto copo, sed non multum impleas. Et decoque  
competenter et comede.  
 
 
No, it doesn't say (even in Latin) "flan", but really: does it need  to?
 
If that wasn't cool enough, consider this: though numerous recipes say to  
put food in a pasty, none that I've seen actually say how to make the pasty  
itself. This recipe, summary as it is, does: use a firm ("hard",  or not  
very hydrated) dough and bake it long enough to harden it.
 
Not much, but it's better than nothing, no?
 
Otherwise, it occurs to me that someone needing food for an event  could 
have great fun making three eras of flan: the Frankish flatcake (probably  a 
honey cake), the pizza-like "Carolingian flan" and the cream or cheese in a  
shell late medieval version.
 
If you really want to have fun, you could even make the version using fish  
or eels. :)
 
 
 
Jim  Chevallier
www.chezjim.com

Newly translated from Pierre Jean-Baptiste  Le Grand d'Aussy:
Eggs, Cheese and Butter in Old Regime  France


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