[Sca-cooks] National Cheesecake Day
JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
Thu Jul 31 11:41:14 PDT 2014
It may help to know the linguistic history here.
The original word was "flado", meaning a flat cake (flado is cognate with
"flat"). In the early Middle Ages, it was probably a sweet flatcake. Its
inflected form in Latin was "fladone", which became "flaon" and then "flan".
(Even today, one meaning of "flan" is a flat metallic surface used in
minting.)
Originally, then, the defining characteristic of a flan was not its
filling; it probably didn't have one. It is that it was flat.
At some point cream or cheese started to be put on it. This was probably
like a pizza. And in fact a recipe from just before or after the Crusades
resembles a pizza; that is, it has slightly raised sides and contains a
cheese filling.
With time, it seems, the side got higher and the defining trait of what
was now a flan was its filling. Just as what had been "pasties" in French
(pâtés) became known for what had filled these (chopped flavored meat), so in
some places a flan is what once filled what had been a flatcake.
Jim Chevallier
www.chezjim.com
Sources on early medieval French food
http://leslefts.blogspot.com/2014/07/sources-on-early-medieval-french-food.h
tml
In a message dated 7/31/2014 11:10:51 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
lordhunt at gmail.com writes:
My last endeavour with one of those recipes was “flaones.” ... I find
the “enchir” recipe more like cheesecake and the other one was a fight to
make it solidify thus making it to be like a Spanish “flan” pudding.
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