‘A cup of cornflour’ - Agatha Christie

Thinking back to my childhood my mother used to make a sweet white sauce/custard using cornflour, sugar and milk.
We had it every Christmas with the pudding instead of custard.

So glad I found this thread! It’s brought back memories of my mother making us custard to drink, she even had special custard glasses which were made of red glass with a handle and shaped like a little mug. If she ever made custard ((always Birds!) that was a little too runny we would pester her to be able to drink it out of the custard glasses.

We never had just cooked cornflour though.

Not sure if this has already been mentioned but my Granny would swear by cornflour for anyone trying to get over an upset stomach. She said it was very bland and wouldn't aggravate a delicate tummy. She made it up like custard and very nice it was too.

Thanks JackyB
I’d forgotten all about this thread!

I always gave my children cornflour for an upset tummy. I told them it was white custard and made it the same way as custard with a little bit of sugar. They actually enjoyed it.

I have just seen a nice video on YouTube with a recipe for a chocolate flavoured cornflour drink and was reminded of this old thread.

youtu.be/wAueNTXpn1E

I use cornflour to thicken the gravy. It doesn’t make it thick like blancmange and is still very liquify. I am imagining it in milk and with sugar and vanilla added you probably wouldn’t notice it was there.

Thanks all! This has a been an interesting venture!
Granzilla the books are Audible audiobooks. They are excellent quality considering how old the recordings must be.
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I particularly like SC reading At Bertram’s Hotel, and Grant reading The Moving Finger.
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DH loves it too.

Cornflour was made up as an invalid drink, I remember my mum making some up when she had an upset stomach. I think it was just the cornflour and milk a bit like modern custard powder.

Although I agree about Joan Hickson, I think June Whitfield's reading on the BBC very good.

"granzilla* There are sometimes Agatha Christie stories on BBC Sounds.
I've not heard Joan Hickson on there, tho. I agree with you about her.

fanny
Were you listening to a podcast or a talking book?
I love Agatha Christie and Joan Hickson is the real and only Miss Marple and would love to listen .

@Witzend, I put a small amount of leaf gelatine in mine just to make it a bit firmer.
I make a lovely black forest trifle, but my custard is always rubbish, so that has a bit of gelatine in too, it stops it collapsing as soon as a serving spoon is dug in!

I still make chocolate pudding (blancmange) occasionally - dh loves, it, but there’s no gelatine in it, Juggernaut. Just milk, cornflour, sugar and cocoa powder.

Blancmange is made with milk, cornflour, sugar and gelatine, so I suppose leaving the gelatine out would give you a milky sweet drink!
I don't think it has anything to do with cornflowers.

If it is milk thickened with cornflour you can count me out. It sounds horrible, no matter how good it is supposed to be for you. ?

I have just realised that I must have read this (don't have the book to hand so can't check). I think, when reading it, I would have been surprised if it said 'cornflower'. So I think, especially in view of all the comments, that it is milk thickened with cornflour.
And FannyCornforth glad to have made you smile - pretty certain about the witchy bit - I was grand-daughter to one - and drank her 'teas'!

I think I read somewhere that a cornflour tea/soup (as someone described above) was used to settle a dicky stomach.

My mum always made me a bowl of cornflour when I had been to the dentist. It was very comforting - like hot milk.

Apparently you slake a teaspoonful (or more) of cornflour in cold milk (as if you were thickening a custard or sauce) . Add vanilla and sugar to taste, then stir it into a pan of boiling milk and whisk like mad.

Quite. It's simply a thin custard (a better description than"runny blancmange" which I said above.)

Yes, that’s the story toscalily

If you do a google search there are various references. It seems to have come from the The Thirteen Problems/The Saturday Night club

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteen_Problems

I found a recipe but haven't dared try it yet.
Apparently you slake a teaspoonful (or more) of cornflour in cold milk (as if you were thickening a custard or sauce) . Add vanilla and sugar to taste, then stir it into a pan of boiling milk and whisk like mad.
Can't say I like the sound of it, but Agatha's little old ladies were always getting up in the middle of the night, when they couldn't sleep, to make a cup of warm milk weren't they?

That's how they discovered all the dead bodies lying around.

How strange,my gran would use that term if there was an argument going on.
She would say "put a cup of cornflour on and that will sort it out".apparently it helps heals wounds,never got it then and still don`t get it.

ExDancer gosh, thank you! That’s very helpful of you!
Rose ‘foreigners and witches’! That made me