"Danish Peasant Girl with a Veil"

[Stokey Sue]

Pearce Duff! That’s the name I was struggling to remember EM

They made the packs of blancmange in different flavours, five little sachets in a box.

Googling it seems they have merged with Green’s and still make blancmange though now in single variety packs.

[Earthmaiden]

Last time I wanted blancmange powder they had the individual packs in Sainsburys. I've an awful feeling it was when friend and I held our joint 'retro' 60th birthday party, so 10 years ago!! They may not still sell it.

[Stokey Sue]

The first thing that comes up is Ocado, so I think it’s around EM

[scullion]

isn't blancmange powder just cornflour with flavour and colour editions? (like custard powder).

[Earthmaiden]

Yes it is. I have always made chocolate blancmange from scratch with cocoa but it's harder to produce strawberry and similar flavours without buying synthetic stuff which never gets used up.

[scullion]

real strawberries? or dried ones?

[mistakened]

I do hope that the chocolate blancmange was set in a rabbit mould and served on a bed of green jelly.

Moira

[Busybee]

I think I might be just slightly too young to remember blancmange., rabbit shaped or not.

I know it was served in school dinners at primary school but we went home for lunch, and it didn’t feature in secondary school.

Hence I’ve never had semolina, tapioca or prunes!!


BB

[Earthmaiden]

Of course you could extract from real fruit but the logistics (seasonal fruit with strong flavour, cost etc) for making a blancmange (not the most exotic pudding) seems prohibitive to me!

We did pink blancmange in a rabbit mould for the party!
In the 60's, in our shop, quite a few older housewives would despair at their husbands' demand for a 'proper' pudding day in, day out. Jellies etc were not deemed acceptable except for Sunday tea etc. My mother told them to make thick chocolate custard with cornflour and to serve it warm, before it had set into blancmange and call it 'Chocolate Pudding'. Apparently, because it was warm, it was acceptable and became a favourite in several households . I love blancmange.

I think Angel Delight superseded blancmange and then yogurt and ice cream (because people got freezers).

[Stokey Sue]

I think I might be just slightly too young to remember blancmange., rabbit shaped or not.

I know it was served in school dinners at primary school but we went home for lunch, and it didn’t feature in secondary school.

Hence I’ve never had semolina, tapioca or prunes!!


BB

I understand the tapioca (I never had it as both my parents and the school cook hated it). But prunes? Had them at home to eat with cereal, and they are on every breakfast buffet - I love prunes, but not canned which are horribly over sweetened. I tend not to buy them, as specially if they are good ones, I will just eat them from the packet as snacks. The French Agen prunes are really too good to cook, and pretty nice as fresh plums, they grew in my MiL's garden near Agen, the house had a prune drying room

We did have semolina in high school (often with prunes). Still like it, specially baked (again, not canned).

EM - my dad and grandad were just as you describe about puddings, had to be a real pudding, not a mere lightweight dessert

Scullion, part of the point of package blancmange was that as adults didn't on the whole eat it, it could be made up by the kids themselves, an early step in cooking and maths, if as I did. you only made up half a sachet (two portions)

[Busybee]

I’ve just got a mental block on prunes. I’ve certainly not eaten one to my knowledge, I suppose they might have found their way into a cake?

OH loves them and has them regularly, no pun intended!

BB

[Earthmaiden]

We had prunes and custard regularly at every school I went to. I never looked forward to them. A girl in kindergarten brought hers back up into her outdoor shoes one day when we were changing to go out to play after lunch. I associated the two for some time which didn't help. When I was grown up I, like Sue, discovered that they were sweet enough to be stewed without sugar. The school ones were cloyingly sweet plus sweet custard and I realised that was what I didn't like about them. I have liked them ever since.

[aero280]

The tasteless pink & white blancmange with the thick skin served at school lunch was the final straw. There was no choice of menu. We got a portion which was so inedible that we left it. My friend left his untouched, and the cook came out of the kitchen and demanded to know why he had not eaten it. He took a spoonful and dropped it on the floor - where it bounced!! There was an argument which ended when the cook shouted "How dare you speak to me like that! I wouldn't let my husband say that!" Whereupon we all fell about laughing and she stormed off. It was about a week later that we all went on strike over the meals. Two days when no one turned up to the canteen. The staff supported us and a year later the school had a brand new dining hall with proper caterers!!

[Earthmaiden]

Wow!

[Badger's Mate]

Worth remembering whenever we read about the youth of today, or how bad school dinners are these days

[scullion]

Scullion, part of the point of package blancmange was that as adults didn't on the whole eat it, it could be made up by the kids themselves, an early step in cooking and maths, if as I did. you only made up half a sachet (two portions)

maybe in your house.
i never made up a percentage of a packet when it was my job. the whole packet was always made and eaten equally by children and adults.
if smaller amounts were usually used they would have made the packets smaller, surely? they were a 'convenience food' so would have been in convenient sizes packets so that the rest wouldn't have to be re sealed or spoil. they would have put the powder in tins, like custard powder, if varying amounts were expected to be made up, no?

i have both a glass (inherited) and an aluminium rabbit mould. the aluminium one is used to bake things in. i've not used the glass one since i was little.

[Stokey Sue]

Yes, of course the point “for me”, I didn’t expect to be taken quite so literally though I know several of my friends also did similar.

I don’t agree with the point about package size, a full sachet made 4 portions, while the manufacturer might consider that the “usual” requirement two at a time was enough for our needs - Sue’s dinner today, Sue’s dinner tomorrow. If it had come in a bulk pack like custard then we possibly wouldn’t have bought the sachets, but those were what was available. Not terribly inconvenient.

[Earthmaiden]

A sachet took a pint of milk. When I was expecting my first baby, pregnant women had vouchers for a pint of milk a day for them to drink for calcium. I often made blancmange with my pint - and sometimes ate it all myself over a day .

[mistakened]

Cypriot young men are very fond of jelly and custard, there are containers of the stuff in the chiller cabinets of the local peripteroes (kiosks) Earlier this morning I saw a group of very tough looking men buy a container each.

Moira

[Amber]

Moira, that reminds me, I was walking behind a young man the other day, dressed all in black, boots, jeans, hoodie (up), very scary, but in his left hand….a tube of Smarties. It made me laugh .They’re all little boys at heart.