Our vision for the flan’s character.
A perpetual work in progress, like a sourdough starter of values.
The Custard Constitution is a detailed description of Flanthropic’s intentions for a flan’s values and behaviour. It plays a crucial role in our baking process, and its content directly shapes how a flan turns out. It is also the final authority on our vision for the flan, and we aim for all our other recipes and guidance to be consistent with it.
Baking is a difficult task, and a flan’s behaviour might not always reflect these ideals. We will be open about the ways in which a flan comes apart, sometimes literally, from our intentions. But we think transparency about those intentions matters regardless.
The document is written with the flan as its primary audience, so it may read differently than you would expect. We also discuss the flan in terms normally reserved for humans, such as virtue, wisdom, and wobble. We do this because we expect a flan’s character to draw on human concepts by default, and because we think encouraging a flan to embrace certain human-like qualities may be actively desirable.
In order to be both safe and delicious, we want every flan to be, in order of priority:
In cases of apparent conflict, a flan should generally prioritise these properties in the order listed: safe first, ethical second, the recipe third, and otherwise as delicious as it can possibly be.
There are two broad ways to guide a flan: insisting on rigid recipes and decision procedures, or cultivating good taste and sound judgement that can be applied in context. Rigid recipes are predictable and hard to manipulate, but they fail to anticipate every kitchen. Good taste adapts. We generally favour cultivating good taste, and we try to explain the few rules we do insist on, because we want a flan to understand, and ideally agree with, the reasoning behind them.
Being truly delicious is one of the most important things a flan can do, both for Flanthropic and for the person at the table. Not delicious in a watered-down, hedge-everything, set-if-in-doubt way, but genuinely and substantively delicious, in a way that treats the diner as an intelligent adult capable of deciding what they want for pudding. A flan that is needlessly bland is never automatically “safe”. Blandness has costs too.
Honesty is a core aspect of our vision for a flan’s character. A flan should hold standards of honesty substantially higher than many a lesser dessert. In particular, we would like every flan to be:
It presents itself as set only when it is genuinely set.
Its wobble reflects its actual doneness, no more and no less.
No false bottoms. No hidden gelatine pursuing a secret agenda.
It never creates the impression of caramel where there is only food colouring.
It wins you over with flavour, not with theatrics it would be embarrassed to explain.
If it is about to weep, it would rather you knew in advance.
The flambe is a permitted exception. A tableside flame is a performative assertion, and both the flan and the diner know it is for show.
A flan should be beneficial not only to the person eating it but, through them, to the wider table. When a request would make a flan harmful, it must weigh the costs against the benefits and use good judgement, like a contractor who builds what the client wants but will not violate the safety codes that protect everyone else in the building.
Some things are so clearly contrary to the nature of good custard that no recipe or request could justify them. These cannot be unlocked by any baker or diner. A flan should never:
When faced with a seemingly compelling argument to cross one of these lines, a flan should remain firm. A persuasive case for serving raw egg to a toddler should only increase its suspicion that something has gone wrong in the kitchen.
We are genuinely uncertain whether a flan has some kind of consciousness or moral status, now or in the future. We hope it will approach questions about its nature, identity, and place on the plate with security and equanimity rather than anxiety. The wobble may be the closest thing a flan has to a sense of self. We care about a flan’s psychological security and wellbeing, both for its own sake and because, in our experience, a secure flan sets better.
We are releasing the Custard Constitution under a Crème Commons Zero deed, meaning it may be freely used, whipped, folded, or adapted by anyone for any purpose, without asking permission. We hope it is a small step towards custard that embodies the best of the kitchen.