Blahmahnge.
In the seventh episode of the Monty Python television show, I encountered the word blancmange. Which is not pronounced as you might think it would be (it's from Middle English).
Oh, now this is where Mr Podgorny could have saved his wife's life. If he'd gone to the police and told them that he'd been approached by unearthly beings from the Galaxy of Andromeda, we'd have sent a man round to investigate. As it was he did a deal with a blancmange, and the blancmange ate his wife.
This struck me as a very strange word (probably exactly why they chose it) and I would never have found out what it was if there had not been a tennis match between a Scotsman and a blancmange featured on the show. The scoreboard showed me how to spell the word. It's a jelly dessert formed into a mold, of the not usually carnivorous or extraterrestrial kind. Of course, it was much more remarkable that the Scotsman was playing at Wimbledon than the blancmange from another planet.Link
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television,
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6 comments:
In French, this roughly translates as "white eat". Before posting this comment, I must confess that I double checked this information at the relevant entry on Wikipedia.
"...a calf's foot or hartshorn jelly flavoured with almond and rosewater..."
Mmmm. That's good eatin'.
If you google for blancmange and look at the images, you'll find that it seems to be one of those foods that's only good when there's something flavoring it, like zucchini. You can also see a picture of the tennis playing blancmange from Python.
Those photos now added to post. For what it's worth, most of the places I looked in recipes and definitions said it was made from milk pudding of some kind. Probably easier to find than calves' feet and harts' horns. :)
It's common in Britain (despite being French) and as a kid the definition was simple: yellow custard was custard, any other colour was blancmange. I'm sure that's not true but I stand by it cos they taste the same and have the same texture. You can serve it solid or runny, just like custard.
All Python references are good Python references. Thank you!
(Dinsdale...?)
...(Addendum)...
And it's a "Pie-thon" btw, not a "pith-on"!
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