Next to taste, smell, texture, price, preparation time, and how easy it is to wash out of a blouse, colour is the most important attribute of food; thus, we have red peppers, purple onions, brown beans, blue cheese, black pudding, orange marmalade, and blancmange. The term blancmange, which literally means white food, was borrowed from French in the fourteenth century as the name of a dish of white meat, such as chicken, in a sauce of cream, eggs, rice, sugar, and almonds. By the seventeenth century, the meat had been omitted from the recipe, and blancmange came to be a sweet dish, usually one made with gelatin boiled in milk so that a white jelly resulted. The blanc of blancmange is of course the French word for white, related to the English blank that means unmarked or empty as in blank slate (the French equivalent being carte blanche). This French blanc is also the source of the culinary term blanch, first used in English in the fifteenth century, which can either refer to whitening food—for example, by removing the skin from almonds—or to preventing food from darkening—for example, by cooking it partially, cooling it, and then cooking it completely. The French blanc is also the source of blanquette, a dish very similar to the original blancmange in that it is white meat in a white sauce. The culinary blanquette appeared in English in the mid eighteenth century, but the word had also been adopted from French about four hundred years earlier as blanket, the original blankets being undyed, and therefore whitish, sheets of woolen cloth. The mange part of blancmange derives from the French word manger, meaning to eat. From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, manger existed in English—where it rhymed with stranger—as a synonym for banquet or feast. Today, manger still exists in English as the name of a place where animals are fed, but it has a curious status: it is familiar to everyone because of Christmas carols like Away in a Manger, but no one uses it outside of its Bethlehem context. Finally, the skin disease known in English as mange—its symptoms being intolerably itchy scabs—also derives from the French manger thanks to the spider-like parasites that chow down on the afflicted beast or human.
A delightful dessert made from a mixture of milk, cornstarch, and a variety of sweet flavorings, often including fruit extracts. Typically, this concoction is a snowy white color and possesses an opaque texture. To give the dessert an extra touch of decadence, some versions may include an infusion of almond or almond-flavored extracts, though this is not a common addition. The final product is usually set into a mould and is a delicious treat for any occasion.
This is a dessert made from milk that is sweetened, flavored, and thickened using either starch (typically cornstarch) or gelatin. The mixture is heated and then poured into a mold that has been moistened, where it sets before being turned out and served.