Talk:Flan (pie)

Untitled
Flan is a caramel custard popular in many latin american countries but also very popular in Spain. It is basically the same things in every country with a couple of different ingredients thrown in but it depends on the country and the way that the flan is done in every family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.97.160.104 (talk) 23:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it a pie or not? The disambig text says yes, and the first sentence of the lead says no. I'm inclined to think the correct answer is "yes", since the article also says it's very much like quiches and tarts (both of which are types of pie); it has a crust and filling; and it's at least as much like a pie as is a pizza (which is generally agreed to be a type of pie). 130.179.29.59 (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what the difference is between Creme Caramel and Flan. The Creme Caramel page says the words are used interchangeably in the US, Spain, and Latin America. I was wondering how the word is pronounced? Is it just said with a high 'a': "flan" or a less pronounced 'a' as in "flawn"? --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 12:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * in the UK at least it's pronounced to rhyme with plan. I can't vouch for other countries though. Sophie means wisdom (talk) 15:00, 13 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Creme caramel is French and "flan" is Spanish. The English usage of flan as referring to a variety of quiche-like cakes or pies is more true to the original meaning. The shift in meaning is similar to the way in US English "pudding" refers to a single custard-like substance, whereas in British English pudding refers to a wide variety of heavy savoury dishes or sweet desserts.Gymnophoria (talk) 13:59, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Flan is exactly like creme caramel. When it's a custard, made of eggs and milk, with no flour, it can't be a cake. The article is questionable. Nexuspoint (talk) 01:30, 28 February 2014 (UTC) nexuspoint

The variety of flan addressed by this page is the British/Irish understanding of flan. It is quite a bit like a big strawberry shortcake to Americans. This blog page http://www.irishamericanmom.com/2012/08/21/irish-fruit-cream-flan-2/ better illustrates what the entry wishes to cover. Perhaps someone could request to use one of her images in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.114.57 (talk) 16:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Ok sure but What happened to the French cake pie named Flan 69.92.18.218 (talk) 15:41, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Etymology
The Spanish flado derives from Latin (in)flare to swell, inflate. This looks pretty obvious: it is odd that the OED connects it to flat, as  the fact of swelling in the baking process is the typical characteristic of a flan.Aldrasto11 (talk) 13:54, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

vlaai
Vlaai in the dutch limburgisch and spanish language might be the same subject. I would not know how to combine them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.93.103.151 (talk) 18:53, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

US
Does the English speaking US follow the Spanish use of "flan" ? - or is that really just Spanish speaking areas ? -- Beardo (talk) 04:16, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Flan in the US is generally used in Latin American contexts (e.g. Mexican restaurants); crème caramel in French contexts. At this point, I don't think there's much of a geographic pattern, except that Latin American flan (the dish) is much more common than French crème caramel, and the word follows.  I don't think there is much non-Latin American, non-French use of either term. --Macrakis (talk) 16:22, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In the US, "flan" always refers to crème caramel, never to the British flan, which we would probably call quiche (regardless of whether it is sweet or savory). Kaldari (talk) 17:55, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Crosspost of merge & rename discussion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cr%C3%A8me_caramel#Move.2C_Rename.2C_and_Merge — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaredzimmerman (talk • contribs) 19:19, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Flan other meanings
Flan may also refer to:

Crème caramel or Flan de leche, especially in Spanish-speaking areas and in the United States.

Quiche, which is a savoury, open-faced pastry crust with a filling of savoury custard with cheese, meat, seafood, and/or vegetables. Quiche can be served hot or cold. It is part of French cuisine but is also popular in other countries, particularly as party food. 2.216.238.231 (talk) 20:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Wrong image
The image for this article is an image of crème caramel (what most of the world knows as "flan"). Is there an image of British flan that we can use instead? Kaldari (talk) 18:01, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Overwriting existing Flan article
In this edit and following ones, (DrS) deleted the existing content of the Flan article and replaced it with a translation of the Spanish Wikipedia article Flan.

There are several problems here:
 * The existing article's content was completely removed. The new article does not cover its content.
 * There was no Edit summary explaining the rationale.
 * There was no discussion on the Talk page about the complete replacement of the article.
 * The Spanish-language article Flan is already interwiki'ed to the existing English-language article Crème caramel.
 * The content duplicates the content of the Crème caramel article.

I reverted to the long-established version, saying: "This is the *English-language* wikipedia. The topic of Spanish flan is already covered in the crème caramel article", and DrS objected, saying "This isn't "Spanish flan" from Spain, as explicitly mentioned by the article as having origins in France and Peru." I obviously wasn't very clear: by "Spanish flan" I meant "flan as described in the Spanish Wikipedia" or "the dish called flan in Spanish", not flan in the cuisine of Spain.

Here is why I think we should revert to the previous state of affairs:

The word "flan" in English has two meanings (as discussed in the crème caramel article): it can be a synonym for crème caramel (custard with a soft caramel topping), and it can be an open pastry tart like a quiche. The crème caramel meaning is common in North America, where it was borrowed from Spanish-language usage. The open tart meaning (formerly written flawn) has a long history in English, and is the usual meaning in the rest of the Anglosphere. Both words of course go back to French originally.

Following WP policy that WP is not a dictionary, each article is about a thing, not about a word. Where there is more than one word for the same thing (or class of things), the content goes under one of the names, with cross-references as necessary. The flan documented in the current version of the Flan article is the same thing as crème caramel, with exactly the same method of preparation and a superset of the content (e.g., it mentions that dulce de leche and whipped cream are common accompaniments not only in Argentina, but also in Chile, Peru, and Uruguay).

It might be argued that "flan" has become the more common name of crème caramel, but that is only true in North America. The Manual of Style clearly states that "The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety of English over any other" and also says that the national variety of English should be maintained. And in Talk:Crème_caramel, we find several UK editors who were unfamiliar with the Spanish-language meaning. So Flan is a perfectly legitimate title, and it had a perfectly clear hatnote:

That article was about the UK meaning of flan since 2009.

I can see two reasonable outcomes here: In either case, the current content of the Flan article should be merged into the crème caramel article. (I believe I have taken care of most of that by adding the discussion of the Peruvian version to the crème caramel article.)
 * The Flan article discusses the UK preparation of a family of open tarts, with a hatnote about other meanings.
 * We move the previous Flan content to Flan (tart) and the Flan article itself becomes a disambiguation page (from Flan (disambiguation)).

I prefer the Flan=open tart solution, because it respects the UK usage. But there's an argument to be made that too many users and editors are confused by this, as witness multiple edits over the years adding crème caramel content to this article.

Discussion? --Macrakis (talk) 22:31, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Flan (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:51, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Title photo - ???
Looks like a omelette to me. No "sweet or savory filling", just a sad piece of soggy cold omelette slice they fed us back in the previous millennia. OkiPrinterUser (talk) 15:16, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Isn't British flan is a "full breakfast" variation of a flan cake ?
The word "flan" for the dessert is quite an association, while that weird "creme caramel" excuse to not refer to sweet flans as flans pretty much feels like what ... like what dulce de leche itself is! A caramellized cream! OkiPrinterUser (talk) 08:16, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Eel Flan
I'm going to need a citation for this, I can't believe it's stayed in this long without one. Where did that line come from? I can only see it being put (back) in here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flan_(pie)&diff=next&oldid=924108407

Part of me thinks it's a creme caramel / _el flan_ joke... happy to be corrected, with a citation. Dichohecho (talk) 09:32, 16 July 2024 (UTC)