[app. a perverted form of CRUSTADE, with which it is connected by the forms crustarde and custad(e. The fashion of the thing appears to have altered about 1600.]
1. † a. Formerly, a kind of open pie containing pieces of meat or fruit covered with a preparation of broth or milk, thickened with eggs, sweetened, and seasoned with spices, etc. = CRUSTADE. b. Now, a dish made with eggs beaten up and mixed with milk to a stiff consistency, sweetened and baked; also a similar preparation served in a liquid form.
[c. 1390. Crustarie: see CRUSTADE.]
c. 1450. Two Cookery-bks., 74. Custarde … Custard lumbarde [Recipes identical with those on pp. 50, 51, for Crustade and Crustade lumbard].
c. 1460. J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, 802. Bakemete, or Custade Costable, when eggis & crayme be geson.
1530. Palsgr., 211/2. Custarde, dariolle [‘Darioles, small pasties filled with flesh, hearbes, and spices, mingled, and minced together’ (Cotgr.)].
a. 1592. Greene, Jas. IV. (1861), 208. Cut it me like the battlements Of a custard, full of round holes.
1628. Earle, Microcosm., Cook (Arb.), 47. Quaking Tarts, and quiuering Custards, and such milke sop Dishes.
1665. Phil. Trans., I. 118. White like the white of a Custard.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury (in Babees Bk. (1868), 211). Custard, open Pies, or without lids, filled with Eggs and Milk; called also Egg-Pie.
1740. Somerville, Hobbinol, iii. (1749), 158. The Custard’s jelly’d Flood.
1864. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., III. 231. To take always the new milk and the custard at twelve.
1887. R. N. Carey, Uncle Max, xv. 114. [Her] custards and flaky crust were famed in the village.
2. attrib. and Comb. a. = Custard-like, as † custard-cap, † -crown, † -pate; b. custard cup, pudding; custard-crammed adj.; † custard-coffin, the ‘coffin’ or crust of a ‘custard’; custard-cups, a local name (Shropshire) for the Willow-herb, Epilobium hirsutum (cf. Codlins-and-cream).
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., IV. iii. 82. It is [a] paltrie cap, A custard coffen, a bauble, a silken pie.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe (1871), 29. The houses here have not such flat custard crowns at the top, as they have [at Cadiz].
a. 1625. Beaum. & Fl., Bloody Bro., III. ii. Do you hear? You Custard Pate, we go to’t for high Treason.
1671. F. Philipps, Reg. Necess., 373. Not to bear Offices in their Parishes or Custard-cram’d Companies.
1676. D’Urfey, Mad. Fickle, I. i. You shall drink Bumpers out of your Custard-Cap you Rogue.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 169. A boiled Custard Pudding.
1787. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Ode upon Ode, Wks. 1794, I. 382. Rich as … custard pudding at a city feast.
Hence Custardly, Custardy adjs. (nonce-wds.), of the nature of or resembling custard.
1870. J. Orton, Andes & Amazons, xix. (1877), 290. The rind … incloses a rich custardly pulp. Ibid., II. xxxviii. 510. A rich custardy pulp.
