Blanc-mange – is creation of French cousine, which derives from two French words – white (blanc) and eating (mange). In its substance it is white jelly, prepared on the basis of gelatin, milk / cream and almonds, aromatized by vanilla or another spice.
At magazine «Science and life» (Nauka i zhizn) we see curious article of modern cousine researcher Igor Sokolsky named «Blancmange, intended for adding delights, experienced in the beginning of eat». The author considered blancmange as typical and very famous in XIX circle desert, looking at culinary and classic literature works.
Philisophy of a desert – is to complement delights, experienced when eating, and to create its good finishing.
Blancmange settled down in Russia, we mean in its provided nobelty, merchants and top of petty bourgeoisie. Peasants, of course, didn’t eat elegant deserts – but, probably it’s more healthy, because medicine prevents from sweets soon after eating. Besides blancmange, were famouse jely, cakes, ice-creams, souffle, mousse, puddings, fruits and others.
Blancmange is largely mentioned in works of Gogol, Poushkin and Chekhov when they describe dances and dinner parties. Allegoricalle young nice women in the likeness got funny name blanmange.
We think, that we should try the above desert in order to make some literary details clear for children (find below recipe from famous Russian «Gift for young owners…» written by Elena Molohovetc):
For 4 glasses of future gely.
Creamy blancmanger. Products: half-glass of almond, vanilla, 3 ½ glasses of cream, 25 gr of gelatin (10 sheets, it should be put to water for some time and wring out then), 100-150 gr of sugar. Almond to peel, pulverise in pounder, mix with cream and filter from cake. Liquid should be mixed with sugar and boiled, then put aside, mixed with gelatin, bottled and frozen in cold place.
Sources: Nauka i Zhizn, Molokhovetc E. Gift to young owners or method to decrease expenses in household. – Minsk, Regul publishing, 2009.
