Custard

[poliphilo]

And then there's custard.

Proper custard is concocted out of milk, egg yolk and sugar, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the economy version- which is a powder you mix with milk to create a thick, bright yellow glop which grows a skin if allowed to cool. The magic ingredient is cornflour. It masks the flavour of whatever you drop it on and tastes of nothing.  I mean, what exactly is the point? 

When I was a kid they smothered it on everything. Some kids (Ailz for example) got a taste for it and adopted it as a beloved comfort food. For me it's a symbol of oppression. 

Show me the tin- with its three happy tweety-birds- and I flip straight back to Cumnor House School with its Oliver Twist-like dining arrangements and its perpetually grim-faced headmaster. Why do people who hate children go into education? Maybe because there's nothing else they're good for. *sigh*.

I feel a rant coming on so I'll shut up.
 



Alfred Bird- the Birmingham chemist- who invented custard powder for a wife who loved custard but was allergic to eggs- Awwwww.

Comments

[fickleasever.livejournal.com]

Could have been worse, you could have got pink custard at school... yuk!!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was spared that.

Around here we say...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

"If you can't DO... TEACH!"

Re: Around here we say...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, we say that too...

The price of a good teacher is beyond rubies. If we really cared for our kids we would hire the best and pay them accordingly

RE: Custard and Gellatine

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

One of the problems with using cornstarch for pudding is that, if the starch doesn't fully cook, it sucks up all of the moisture and fat and ends up tasting like paste.

In the States, Jell-o Brand sells instant puddings and custards which are blends of highly processed ingredients that yield a reasonable facsimile of what a pudding or custard should be in consistancy. However the flavors don't begin to match the results you can obtain making pudding or custard from 'scratch'.

Whether or not an instant gellatine or pudding is produced by Jell-o, Americans tend to refer to these things as Jell-o:



My favorite Jell-o is Jello Biafra:

Re: RE: Custard and Gellatine

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Our word for jello is jelly- which causes confusion because our word for jelly is jam.

I enjoyed the clip. That sounded like our very own Joolz Holland doing the interviewing.

which makes me think of 'Jelly's Last Jam'

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

I'm too lazy to look this up, but I think 'jam' is a preserve of cooked fruit, whereas 'jelly' is fruit juice with pectin. In the states, 'jelly' is clear or translucent, 'jam' is not.

Re: which makes me think of 'Jelly's Last Jam'

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's right.

And now you've got me confused- I thought you guys called all jam jelly, but it seems not.

Maybe it's just that we like our preserve with lumps of fruit in it and you like it without.

Re: which makes me think of 'Jelly's Last Jam'

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

You would be partial to 'jam' or 'preserves' as I am. I usually purchase imported preserves from France, Denmark or Poland and am partial to raspberry, cherry or blueberry.

Oh, and I love marmalade from Dundee.

Re: which makes me think of 'Jelly's Last Jam'

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I like preserves- the higher the fruit content the better.

I'm fond of marmalade too. I like it chunky- with great big strips of rind in it. Frank Cooper's "Oxford" is a good brand.

Re: marmalade

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can find "Oxford" here.

My grandmother used to make marmalade. I'm sure it must have been an American recipe. It was sweetened with home grown carrots and was made with California oranges. It was fragrant, but it never had the 'bite' of a marmalade made with tart oranges.

Re: marmalade

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe you need Seville oranges to make the best marmalade.

My mother used to make jam and marmalade. It's one of those things you did if you were a mid-20th century, middle-class, English housewife. She was very good at it. She also brewed the best beer I've ever tasted.

Generational thing...

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

My grandmother endured The Great Depression and the food rationing during World War II and I think she probably could've grown, alchemized or repaired just about anything for household use.

My mother came of age during the 1950s and whole-heartedly embraced anything frozen or pre-packaged. I preferred eating at grandma's house.

I've never actually had home-brewed beer. I have friends who brew beer from kits, but I've never sampled it. I'm not much of a drinker, though...

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Errrr... Speaking for myself, and all the other teachers on my list, and yours... that's way out of line. I don't know a single teacher that I've ever been around who hated or hates children. Most of them LOVE children. And the thing about "if you can't do, teach", is simply absurd. That's why we all spend years in school so that we can go on teaching.

If you CAN DO - thank a teacher.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that. I know most teachers don't hate children. But some do, and I've suffered under them.

I think teachers should be valued more and paid better. If we cared about our kids the way we say we do teaching would be the best paid, most prestigious job there is.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Amen to that!

I'm sorry that you had to endure the worst of the profession. I expect that every profession has those, in fact I know that for a fact. Look what we have learned about A FEW priests!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh God, yes.

I've known a lot of priests (mainly Anglican)- and what a sad bunch they are!

frustration...

[pop-o-pie.livejournal.com]

I can only speak as a son and grandson of educators, but it seems that over time the constrictions of politics, curriculum and high expectations, teachers get frustrated and experience 'burn-out' over time. It's not that they 'hate' their pupils, but they do get tired of serving up the same old crap year after year.

I have an acquaintance who is a gifted high school physical education teacher and volleyball coach. She has coached teams that have won national titles and have gone on to the Olympics. A couple of years ago she reached the point where she does only what is necessary because she is sick to death of it. She's 'tenured' and will be eligible for retirement in another ten years, so she refuses to step down or change school systems. She openly admits that she is merely biding her time...

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I'm with Ailz on this one! Custard ROCKS!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's no accounting for tastes...

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I think I tried English custard one time while there- topping a pudding that had been steaming for hours. It was an interesting, but difficult dessert- it was so dense and rich that I could not finish it.

I make custard the traditional way- from scratch. I love the lovely alchemy of tempering and stirring and watching something that could be scrambled eggs if improperly made become a rich, smooth sauce that can either be part of an eggnog, or a wonderful ice cream base.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that was some kind of suet pudding- probably with dried fruit in it.

Suet pudding is one of the English nation's great contributions to world cuisine.

I'm afraid I've never tried making real custard. Scrambled eggs, yes. I'm pretty good at scrambled eggs.

Mmmmm- eggnog!

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

My Eggnog of Doom is the stuff of legend in my Science Fiction group.

:-)

It's ironic- it was supposed to be the stuff of legend in my Pagan group, but that didn't work out.

Real custard requires a very precious commodity: time and patience. You are required to stand and stir it constantly until it heats up and gets to the right consistency. People seem not to want to do this. It's too bad- the results are worth the work, as are the resulting mouth-gasms.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

We thought that was quite a treat as children.
:)
I used to beg my mother to make the "pudding with skin on top"...that would be the Jello brand cooked version. Now all they have is the instant kind where all you do is add milk to the powder and mix.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Jello et al also make a pudding mix that one cooks. Its texture is better.

I have a cornstarch pudding recipe that calls for an egg-yolk, so it's a bit of a hybrid, I guess.

As for the stuff one spreads on toast, I think the U.S. nomenclature is:

* fruit juice, pectin and sugar, to make clear stuff = jelly
* well-mashed fruit, pectin and sugar = jam
* fruit that is whole or close to it, pectin and sugar = preserves

I could go look it up in my Ball Blue Book of Canning and Preserving but I'm feeling lazy.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Real custard was the only way that I could get eggs into some of the children I've looked after - but I've known quite a number of over-60s who love Bird's custard, and complain that real custard is "pale".
By the way, I lesrned from K. Whitehorn years ago that corn flour is all right for thickening, provided that you cook it for ten minutes - but wouldn't most liquids reduce in that time anyway?