Junket (dessert)
{{Short description|Dessert made with sweetened milk and rennet}}
{{For the|United States food company|Junket (company)}}
{{More citations needed|date=December 2014}}
{{Infobox prepared food
| name = Junket
| image = Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent (6477078261).jpg
| image_size = 250px
| caption = A jasmine tea junket
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| type = Pudding
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| main_ingredient = Sweetened milk, rennet, sugar, vanilla
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Junket is a milk-based dessert with a jelly texture, made with sweetened milk and rennet, the digestive enzyme that curdles milk. {{cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Carol |title=Porters English Cookery Bible |date=2009 |publisher=Pavilion Books |isbn=978-1-906032-77-7 |page=159 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ssgc30PTFToC&pg=PA159 |access-date=8 December 2019 |language=en}} It is usually set in a mould and served cold.
Some similar desserts are ostkaka, blancmange, {{lang|it|panna cotta}}, {{lang|tr|tavuk göğsü}}, almond tofu, {{lang|haw|haupia}} and {{lang|es-PR|tembleque}}.
Preparation
History
Junket evolved from an older French dish, jonquet, a dish of renneted cream in which the whey is drained from curdled cream, and the remaining curds are sweetened with sugar.
In medieval England, junket was a food of the nobility made with cream and flavoured with rosewater, spices, and sugar. It started to fall from favour during the Tudor era, being replaced by syllabubs on fashionable banqueting tables, and by the 18th century, had become an everyday food sold in the streets.
For most of the 20th century in the Eastern United States, junket made with milk instead of cream was a preferred food for ill children, mostly due to its sweetness and ease of digestion.{{cn|date=January 2023}}
Dorothy Hartley, in her Food in England from 1954, has a section on rennet followed by a section on "Junkets, Curds and Whey or Creams". She cites rum as the most common flavouring, and clotted cream as the usual accompaniment. She notes that the practice of heating the milk is a new one; originally, junket was made with milk as it was obtained from the cow, already at body temperature.Dorothy Hartley, Food In England, 1954; 1999, p. 473
Etymology
The word's etymology is uncertain. It may be related to the Norman jonquette (a kind of cream made with boiled milk, egg yolks, sugar, and caramel), or to the Italian giuncata or directly to the medieval Latin juncata. The first recorded use as a food is in The boke of nurture, folowyng Englondis gise.John Russell, The boke of nurture, folowyng Englondis gise, circa 1460,[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24790/24790-h/nurture.html#nurture_contents Project Gutenberg]
The word may also derive from the French jonches, a name for freshly made milk cheese drained in a rush basket,An Omelette and a Glass of Wine originally published in London by R. Hale Ltd, 1984. See the chapter titled "Pleasing Cheeses,"p. 206. which itself derives from jonquet, the name for such a basket.
References
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{{Puddings}}
{{Portal|Food}}