Puddings?

[ladyofastolat]

Someone at work lent me a bizarre Wii game called Cooking Mama, in which you have to "cook" various world dishes. The game is very clearly Japanese. The first example of national British cuisine is something unhelpfully called a generic "pudding", and it consists of egg, milk, sugar, grand marnier and vanilla. It's put in small pots, then tipped out into a plate, where it keeps its shape, and is yellow, with a brown top. What on earth is this supposed to be? The second British dish is "cream puffs", which, if I remember correctly through the slightly alcoholic haze of last night, contain salt.

As you play, "cooking mama", in a very strong Japanese accent, tells you how you've done. When you do well, she says something that sounds like "good dog." If you do pathetically, she says "don't mind." Your final ratings are either "very good", "good" or "try hard." I like "try hard" as another way of saying "you're hopeless" and plan to use it.

I'm at work today, getting driven mad by the constant beeping of the events team's answer phone. Grr! Still, I've taken Monday as leave, so after today, don't need to be at work until January 2nd. Yay! We're off to The Mainland tomorrow, so if I don't post again, I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas / winter festival of their choice.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm amused that despite the French-sounding name, the French don't call creme caramel "creme caramel."

This leads me to a related wondering about the difference between a flan (in the UK usage of the word, which appears to be totally different from the above) and a quiche. I'm sure that when I was young, you could buy flans in shops, and they looked and tasted pretty much the same as what would now be sold as a quiche.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Yes, flans have become quiche, I think it happened some time in the 80s but I 've never fathomed why.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Today I had a slice of 'mature cheddar and caremelised onion tart' which tasted just like quiche. Or flan.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Now that's interesting. To me, flan is something entirely different from quiche (though not, of course, resembling creme caramel either.) Basically it is a pudding consisting of a very particularly shaped shallow base-plus-edge made of spongy stuff, filled with your choice of fruit(s) in jelly. That's the best description I can come up with, anyway. It was a regular pudding in my childhood, especially but not only at grandparents' houses. I believe one can/could buy ready-made flan-cases from shops. I must admit I haven't had a flan in years and years, and it is probable that I never had a quiche until after I had my last flan, but as quiche is savoury they nonetheless occupy entirely different places in my mind.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Ah ... Flan as a dessert is in my mind a different thing again, like you can have apple pie or steak and ale pie. But if you were to want a flan case some shops do still sell them, the light spongy ones that is.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

I don't *really* want a flan case, as to be honest I never really liked flan all that much. But a certain nostalgia does make me half-want to try it again ;-)