custard

This meal was unlike any other I would ever eat. A petite, soft around the middle, Englishwoman invited us to share the meal. I can remember every detail of the food but can’t seem to bring her name to mind.
“I have children your age,” she said. “If my children were abroad, I would want someone to take them in and feed them like this.”
The drizzly damp air was the cold of rheumatism. Our hostess's welcome cottage was a cocoon of warmth. The tidy sitting room housed two small settees, thick and plush and an oversized armchair. Here sat the six of us, missionaries, all transplants from the states. Each having spent a different amount of time away from home but all still susceptible to homesickness.
We breathed in the aroma of full bodied meat drippings. They spoke of a chicken, roasted whole with rosemary and garlic. Our next inhalation distinguished that almost breadlike scent of Yorkshire pudding. It was a moment of anticipatory satisfaction because food that follows aromas like that is certain not to disappoint.
One by one, our meals were brought out on trays. The kitchen table was far too small to seat all of us, so we would be eating on our laps. The plates had been kept in the warmer. Heat spread over my palms as I took my dish from our hostess. My eyes landed on the Yorkshire pudding first, caramel colored gravy pooling in its hollow. Two types of potatoes: a pillowy mound of mashed and a few crusted golden brown roasted ones. Three inch strips of julienned braised parsnips rested next to what I thought at first was some sort of blush colored applesauce. But after tasting the slushy thick substance, I was surprised. Savory with an overlay of radish. Was this a turnip? Swede, I was told. It’s a root vegetable. I had never heard of it before. We call it rutabega in the states. God bless that highly overlooked vegetable.
We ate in near silence, fearing that words might interrupt this celebration of our senses. Believing that nothing could be better than what we had just partaken, our hostess announced dessert. Rhubarb apple crumble with custard. Even today, in the retelling, I whisper these words with the reverence and respect reserved for deity. A transcendental dessert. The nutty heat of the cinnamon and molasses sugar in the crumble fought with the sharpness of the granny smith apples and rhubarb, all blanketed in the pale yellow, velvet custard, not too thick, not too sweet. Flavors wrapped up together into a comforting mouthful. The tastes abroad replaced the tastes of home.
I looked across at one of my dining mates, tears streaming down his face.
“Are you O.K.? I asked.”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s just so good.”
I’ve tried to recreate this same dish on several occasions but have never achieved the same result. I believe it is because when I was there, I was a child abroad looking for a piece of home. When our hostess was preparing the meal it was as a mother preparing a piece of home for her child abroad. There is, however, one exception. Every time I make the custard, regardless of what it is poured over, someone is reduced to tears.