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Your e-Mails

Marie Vabre	Hello Nicey and Wifey, I'm French, and I lived some seven years in England, I thoroughly enjoyed these years. But I still have my tea without milk nor sugar.. Which stops me from enjoying the strong brew I often get in most tea places, even if I ask for a very weak tea. Only posher places allow you to remove the tea bag before the tea is undrinkable, or give you a jug of water to weaken the tea... Are you all horrified out there??? Now for custard: yes I admit having enjoying some custards, school dinners ones, home made ones made from Bird's I suppose, but I love trifle, and I have an excellent English recipe that doesn't use jelly, but home made custard (from eggs and milk, but with a special tip which I will reveal on your site if anyone would like to hear it), and also using mostly fresh fruit. Of course in summer I use fresh strawberries, peaches, apricots, to the delight of my French guests who first say "What? Not an English dessert!! Anybody interested in my recipe? And to finish with, another addition to British shopping abroad: in the little town of Foix (Ariège) where I live, there is a litttle shop called "Simply British" where you can find all this delicious stuff, even Marmite among other things, that I used to have to bring back from England every time I went there on holiday. The shop is run by an English lady, and the adress is Rue des Chapeliers, should you wish to visit that lovely and peaceful part of France. (By the way, lots of British people have bought houses and are settling or plan to settle there at retirement.There is even a B and B place run by English people, and an English restaurant with a English chef, who makes delicious puddings with custard...The place is called Gaia and the 3 ^places are in the same street in Foix Voilà tout, merci for your site, and I look fotward to any queries! Keep up the good work Marie Vabre
	Nicey replies: Apart from your dubious tea mangling ways you seem otherwise very well adjusted. Actually the YMOS and I went fruit picking on Sunday at our local fruit farm which is literally the other side of the road from NCOTAASD HQ, even if it is half a mile away down that road. Having gone a bit mad on the raspberries, I juiced the excess added sugar and set it with some gelatine to make fresh raspberry jelly. Some trifle sponges and strawberry blancmange later and we had pudding. Yes I did briefly agonise over the custard vs blancmange issue, but I have a backlog of strawberry blancmange. So far in our tea tours of France we have never made it down as far as the Pyrenees, but we would love to visit one day.
Hugh Maddison	Dear Nicey, For some reason the chefs where I work insist on calling Custard "English Sauce" whenever they put it onto the menu! Is this some strange EU directive that means its not allowed to be called Custard unless it comes from the Custardy region of France or Germany or where ever? Whatever the reason, I can report that it tastes just the same. Maybe we need a capaign to Save Our Custard! On a different point, my childhood favorite desert was Banana Custard, which my brother and I used to make by pouring a generous helping of custard over a sliced banana. Delicious! Yours aye, Hugh
	Nicey replies: Bananas and Custard are a proper pudding. The younger members of staff and myself often tuck into a bowl.
Eric TheMadFrenchman	Dear Nicey, As a representant of the French in GB, I would like to add my view on the "proper custard made from powder" Vs "nonsence custard made with eggs and other fresh ingredients". First of all: " Apparently classically trained French chefs refuse to acknowledge the existence of custard" Well, I disagree! We have "Creme Anglaise", it is the receipe of the traditional custard (i.e. the noncense one as it appear to be).... For the "Proper Custard", one should look under "Bechamel Sauce" and simply replace the salt and pepper by some vanilla flavouring and sugar.... and here you go, custard as you know it... (using corn flour to have that nice creamy texture). :P So, here you go, simply a difference in the naming convention for "proper custard". Call that "vanilla flavoured bechamel sauce", and you French Chef will imediately answer "Ah, mais bien sure!" (Ah, of course!) before grabbing his butcher knife and start chassing after you :) (just kidding... I think) Have a nice day Eric, "TheMadFrenchman"(tm)