The name of one French dessert that people find confusing is crème caramel. Caramel-topped custards like this are called flan in Spanish, which confounds people who come to France and see a slice of flan in a bakery, that looks like (and is) a tart baked with a flour-stiffened custard, rather than the wobbly, caramel-topped custard that some of us are used to.

To confuse people further, the Breton term far is used for flan in French, such as in the case of Far Breton. So while the nomenclature of the other desserts, from here, there and everywhere, might be confusing in France – and in French, a crème caramel – also called crème renversée, is usually what they are called in French, not flan.

(People ask why learning a language is so hard. That little lesson right there was just for one single mound of custard on a plate.)

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