Blancmange - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Blancmange is a sweet dessert

Dessert

In cultures around the world, dessert is a course that typically comes at the end of a meal, usually consisting of sweet food. The word comes from the French language as dessert and this from Old French desservir, "to clear the table" and "to serve." Common Western desserts include cakes, biscuits,...

commonly made with milk

Milk

Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many...

or cream

Cream

Cream is a dairy product that is composed of the higher-butterfat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, over time, the lighter fat rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators"...

and sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

thickened with gelatin

Gelatin

Gelatin is a translucent, colorless, brittle , flavorless solid substance, derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and bones. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, pharmaceuticals, photography, and cosmetic manufacturing. Substances containing gelatin or functioning in a similar...

, cornstarch

Cornstarch

Corn starch, cornstarch, cornflour or maize starch is the starch of the corn grain obtained from the endosperm of the corn kernel.-History:...

or Irish moss, and often flavored with almond

Almond

The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...

s. It is usually set in a mould and served cold. Although traditionally white, blancmanges are frequently given a pink color as well. Some similar desserts are Bavarian cream

Bavarian cream

Bavarian cream or Crème bavaroise or simply Bavarois is a classic dessert that was included in the repertoire of Marie-Antoine Carême, who is sometimes credited with it. It was named in the early 19th century for Bavaria or, perhaps more likely in the history of haute cuisine, for a particularly...

, vanilla pudding (in US usage), panna cotta

Panna cotta

Panna cotta is an Italian dessert made by simmering together cream, milk and sugar, mixing this with gelatin, and letting it cool until set. It is generally from the Northern Italian region of Piemonte, although it is eaten all over Italy, where it is served with wild berries, caramel, chocolate...

, and haupia

Haupia

Haupia is a traditional coconut milk-based Hawaiian dessert often found at luaus and other local gatherings in Hawaii. Since World War II, it has become popular as a topping for white cake, especially at weddings...

.

The historical blancmange originated some time in the Middle Ages and usually consisted of capon

Capon

A capon is a rooster that has been castrated to improve the quality of its flesh for food.-History:The Romans are credited with inventing the capon. The Lex Faunia of 162 BC forbade fattening hens in order to conserve grain rations. In order to get around this the Romans castrated roosters, which...

or chicken, milk or almond milk, rice and sugar and was considered to be an ideal food for the sick. Tavuk göğsü

Tavuk gögsü

Tavuk göğsü is a Turkish dessert pudding made with chicken and milk. It became one of the most famous delicacies served to the sultans in the Ottoman Topkapı Palace...

, a Turkish

Turkish cuisine

Turkish cuisine is largely the heritage of Ottoman cuisine, which can be described as a fusion and refinement of Central Asian, Middle Eastern and Balkan cuisines. Turkish cuisine has in turn influenced those and other neighbouring cuisines, including that of western Europe...

dish still in use today, is made with shredded chicken, as was the medieval European dish.

History

The true origin of the blancmange is obscure, but it is believed that it was a result of the Arab introduction of rice and almonds in early medieval Europe. However, there is no evidence of the existence of any similar Arab dishes from that period; though the Arabic mahallabīyah is similar, its origins are uncertain. Several other names for related or similar dishes existed in Europe, such as the 13th century Danish hwit moos ("white mush"), the Anglo-Norman blanc desirree ("white Syrian dish") and Dutch calijs (from Latin colare, "to strain"). The oldest recipe found so far is from a copy of a Danish translation of German original by Henrik Harpestræng

Henrik Harpestræng

Henrik Harpestræng was a Danish botanical and medical author. He was a canon at the Roskilde Cathedral. His name literally means harp string....

(died 1244), which dates back to the early 13th century at the latest. The German original is in turn assumed to have been based on a Latin or Romance vernacular manuscript from the 12th century or even earlier.

The "whitedish" (from the original Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

term blanc mangier) was an upper-class dish common to most of Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

during the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

and early modern period. It occurs in countless variations from recipe collections from all over Europe and is mentioned in the prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at...

and in an early 15th century cookbook written by the chefs of Richard II. The basic ingredients were milk

Milk

or almond milk

Almond milk

Almond milk is a milky drink made from ground almonds. Unlike animal milk, almond milk contains no cholesterol or lactose. Regular, unsweetened almond milk can be used as a substitute for animal milk in many recipes, and as it does not contain any animal products, is suitable for vegetarians and...

, sugar and shredded chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

(usually capon

Capon

) or fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, and often combined with rosewater

Rosewater

Rose water or rose syrup is the hydrosol portion of the distillate of rose petals. Rose water, itself a by-product of the production of rose oil for use in perfume, is used to flavour food, as a component in some cosmetic and medical preparations, and for religious purposes throughout Europe and...

, rice flour, and mixed into a bland stew

Stew

A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables , meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef. Poultry, sausages, and seafood are also used...

. Almond milk and fish were used as substitutes for the other animal products on fast

Fasting

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...

days and Lent

Lent

In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

. It was also often flavored with spices like saffron or cinnamon and the chicken could be exchanged for various types of fowl, like quail

Quail

Quail is a collective name for several genera of mid-sized birds generally considered in the order Galliformes. Old World quail are found in the family Phasianidae, while New World quail are found in the family Odontophoridae...

or partridge

Partridge

Partridges are birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are a non-migratory Old World group.These are medium-sized birds, intermediate between the larger pheasants and the smaller quails. Partridges are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East...

. Spices were often used in recipes of the later Middle Ages since they were considered highly prestigious. The whitedish was one of the preparations that could be found in recipe collections all over Europe and one of the few truly international dishes of medieval and early modern Europe.

On festive occasions and among the upper classes, whitedishes was often rendered more festive by various coloring agents: a reddish golden yellow of saffron

Saffron

Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...

; green with various herb

Herb

Except in botanical usage, an herb is "any plant with leaves, seeds, or flowers used for flavoring, food, medicine, or perfume" or "a part of such a plant as used in cooking"...

s; or sandalwood

Sandalwood

Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted...

for russet

Russet (color)

Russet is a dark brown color with a reddish-orange tinge.The first recorded use of russet as a color name in English was in 1562.The source of this color is the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names --Color dictionary used by stamp collectors to identify the colors of stampsThe name of the color...

. In 14th century France parti-coloring, the use of two bright contrasting colors on the same plate, was especially popular and was described by Guillaume Tirel (also known as Taillevent), one of the primary authors of the later editions of Le Viandier. The brightly colored whitedishes were one of the most common of the early entremet

Entremet

An entremet is in modern French cuisine a small dish served between courses or simply a dessert. Originally it was an elaborate form of entertainment dish common among the nobility and upper middle class in Western Europe during the later part of the Middle Ages and the early modern period...

s, edibles that were intended to entertain and delight through a gaudy appearance, as much as through flavor.

In the 17th century, the whitedish evolved into a meatless dessert pudding

Pudding

Pudding most often refers to a dessert, but it can also be a savory dish.In the United States, pudding characteristically denotes a sweet milk-based dessert similar in consistency to egg-based custards, though it may also refer to other types such as bread and rice pudding.In the United Kingdom and...

with cream and eggs and, later, gelatin

Gelatin

. In the 19th century, arrowroot

Arrowroot

Arrowroot, or obedience plant , Bermuda arrowroot, araru, ararao, is a large perennial herb found in rainforest habitats...

and cornflour

Cornflour

Cornflour may be:* Cornmeal, flour ground from dried corn* Cornstarch , the white, powdered starch of the maize grain* Masa, the flour of hominy* Wheat starch, in Australia...

were added and the dish evolved into the modern blancmange.

Etymology

The word blancmange derives from Old French blanc mangier. The name "whitedish" is a modern term used by some historians, though the name historically was either a direct translation from or a calque

Calque

In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...

of the Old French term. Many different local or regional terms were used for the dish in the Middle Ages:

English: blancmanger, blankmanger, blank maunger, blomanger, blamang
Catalan: 'am (medieval), menjar blanc
Portuguese: manjar branco
Italian: mangiare bianco, blanmangieri, bramangere
Spanish: manjar blanco
Dutch/Flemish: blanc mengier
German: blamensir
Latin: albus cibus, esus albus

Though it is fairly certain that the etymology is indeed "white dish", medieval sources are not always consistent as to the actual color of the dish. Food scholar Terence Scully has proposed the alternative etymology of bland mangier, "bland dish", reflecting its often mild and "dainty" (in this context meaning refined and aristocratic) taste and popularity as a sick dish.

External links

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History

Etymology

See also

Sources

External links