blancmange

Old French blanc mangier (“white food”). The pudding evolved from the chicken dish.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /bləˈmɒn(d)ʒ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /bləˈmɑn(d)ʒ/

blancmange (countable and uncountable, plural blancmanges)

1. A simple dessert made by cooking sweetened milk with cornstarch and vanilla.
   • 2010, Kate Jennings, Trouble: Evolution of a Radical: Selected Writings 1970-2010, page 36:

     I was a snarler. I prided myself on being a snarler. I would go to great lengths to avoid stereotypical feminine behaviour. I thought that in being outrageous or out of control, which I viewed as synonymous, I was thumbing my nose at the patriarchy. My biggest fear about AA was that I would lose my edge. Turn into blancmange.

   • 2018 July 3, Daniel Taylor, “England knock Colombia out of World Cup in last-16 penalty shootout”, in The Guardian‎:

     Yet the shootout was only part of the story against tough, obdurate opponents – “animals” according to Chris Waddle in his radio commentary – on a night when Colombia’s supporters had filled this stadium in swathes of bright yellow, bouncing and swaying like human blancmange and creating a raucous din.

2. (historical) A dish, eaten in the Middle Ages, generally consisting of chicken (or sometimes capon or fish), milk or almond milk, rice, and sugar.
   • 2011, Annette Hope, Londoners' Larder: English Cuisine from Chaucer to the Present, →ISBN:

     Chaucer's Cook made blancmange with the best of them, according to the Prologue to the Tales. There were two versions of this popular dish in Chaucer's day, one made with fish and the other with capon or chicken.