“And could I interest you in some dessert?…” asks the waiter.

“Erm.. okay, go on then” I reply, feigning a momentary hesitation as though dessert hasn’t even crossed my mind when, to be honest, it’s the main reason I’m even here.

Of course, the waiter probably sees through my little charade, my phony tango of will-I-won’t-I; he’s seen it all before. In fact, of the two of us, it is I who ends up being deceived – for what I’m yet to realise is that I’m not really here for the pudding, but for the past…

*

It is Jimi Famurewa’s review in the Evening Standard that leads me to Fenn – a neighbourhood restaurant in Fulham – and especially an alluring reference to a “wibbling” nutmeg custard tart.

Okay, so custard can split the room: even mentioning its telltale wibble may cause some to shudder in horror, whilst others will sigh in delight. In a world that’s increasingly nuanced, custard remains a last bastion of binary. There is no custard spectrum.

So just to be clear – I’m firmly in the ‘love’ camp of custard, whether it’s constrained into a tart, or let loose in a tumbling cascade over banana.

That the love camp has the upper hand is reflected in its sheer ubiquity. From Filipino custard cake to Portuguese pastel de nata, Turkish laz böreği to Breton flan – Queen Custard is revered far and wide, her subjects are loyal and armed with big spoons.

Yet as I read Jimi’s review, and particularly that description of custard, something else lit up inside me – the warm glow of nostalgia.

Nostalgia is often denigrated, readily dismissed as warm and fluffy, incongruent in our cold unsentimental world. Or it’s cast as an indulgence, an emotion of privilege, for those fortunate to have had childhoods brimming with smiles and scones. And when it comes to writing, it’s sometimes viewed quite cynically: a hackneyed road to the reader’s heart.

Still, sitting here at this restaurant table, as the dessert is placed before me, I know what I’m feeling. It is what it is.

But why? – well, that’s another question. After all, this dish resembles nothing from my childhood. No recollection I can readily pin it on.

It does however look striking – a cream-coloured cuboid, all perfect parallel lines and pointy vertices, its upper surface speckled with nutmeg, and yes a glorious wibble as you gently rock the plate, like a bank of sun-kissed marram grass swaying in the breeze.

Jimi called it “Brutalist” – indeed, you could quite imagine how a series of these blocks, suitably positioned, would make a fine custard Barbican Centre. Which indeed would be a wondrous thing…  but not something to stir up sentimentality. If anything, Brutalism was a riposte to the more nostalgic schools of art.

Yet, as I look at it, there are echoes of childhood here – or at least of a child’s building bricks, that archetypal toy through which an infant learns about the physical universe: construction and destruction, gravity and object permanence.

Could these vague feelings of nostalgia be rooted in my earliest years of infancy? Maybe. But that just seems too far a jump, too elusive, too deeply entombed within my subconscious. I decide to move on.

Hovering a spoon over a corner, wary of disrupting such a perfect architectural form, I go for the plunge.

What emerges is a cool curl of creamy custard, its texture meltingly smooth. It’s as though, whilst on the plate, its constituent molecules had been vigorously straining to conform to those rigid lines and forms, but now inside my mouth, they abandon any sense of decorum, slipping down my gullet in unbridled velvet bliss.

Somewhat oddly then, I find myself thinking of Milupa semolina pudding. It must be from when I was about three, where during mealtimes with my baby sister, I’d always be on the lookout to scavenge a cheeky spoonful. If I was lucky – or maybe just when I was being a right pest – mum would mollify me with a bowl of my own.

Indeed, I realise this must be my very first food memory. I linger over this scene, relishing every nook before it dissipates from my mind – a melamine bowl decorated with farm animals, the wondrous revelation of a tractor as I scrape the final spoonful.

Still, is this really the source of my nostalgia: powdered baby food? The contrast feels too stark, especially when compared with this grown-up dessert now before me, its custard decidedly rich.

It brings a familiarity I can’t quite place, and then… I find myself circling back half a lifetime ago, and Sunday dim sum trips to Chinatown with my then-girlfriend and her family. We’d always bring home a sizable haul of Hong Kong egg tarts and lotus-seed bao, neatly packaged into white cardboard boxes.

Those sunny yellow discs ensconced in crumbly pastry – I loved those tarts! – but is this feeling nostalgia, or just fondness? Must nostalgia stem from childhood, or is passage of time enough?

I let that hang whilst I move on to inspect the nutmeg, flecks of which lie strewn across the surface, like iron filings awaiting a magnet’s spell, or pollen seeds drifting along a stream. I continue to stare, and wonder if you stare long enough whether a three-dimensional image would pop out: a butterfly or fairy-castle.

Nutmeg is often said to instil a sense of nostalgia. Which is odd, as it’s a far from innocent spice. Colonial battles have been fought over it, lands conquered, people enslaved – connotations more gruesome than toothsome.

Besides, if nutmeg-laced puddings are long associated with nostalgia, it’s not my nostalgia. Instead, the desserts of my youth were defined by another spice – cinnamon – by way of stodgy Ashkenazi stalwarts like lokshen pudding and apple strudel.

Likewise for the little nuggets of poached rhubarb that grace the side of the plate. Mouth-puckering stems and sweet creamy custard may comprise a classic pudding pairing – of which I’m now a committed devotee – but not something I ever experienced as a child.

Except… a little tug appears in a deep recess of my brain. A saccharine sweetness fills my mouth, aromatic shards of cracked confectionery cling inexorably to my teeth.

Rhubarb-and-custard sweets! – my dad’s very favourite. I must have been about ten, riding to the corner shop on my shiny new BMX bike, scooping up some penny sweets with a pink plastic shovel, dropping them thud-thud into a crisp paper bag.

It’s a happy memory, but a rather isolated one. And I can’t help but think that nostalgia is founded on something more repetitive or prolonged – family festival gatherings or summer trips to the seaside – where layers of memory accrue over time and become ingrained like sedimentary rock.

Either way, back and forth I go between the custard and the rhubarb, assiduously collecting portions of each onto my spoon, watching on as tiny streams of fuchsia syrup run off the stems and pool beside the golden cream.

At this point, I find myself utterly entranced, in the way that you do with a fine dessert. I keep digging down through the custard, until my reverie is finally broken as the spoon crashes into a bedrock of ginger-biscuit crumb. On combining it with the custard however, it feels uncannily familiar.

Suddenly, my mind conjures up images of Saturday afternoons at my grandparents. Football’s on the radio, and sitting on the kitchen top, a slab of dark dense ginger cake, the kind found in old-school kosher bakeries. Spooned over it are lashings of Ambrosia custard.

I see myself perched by the counter, eagerly tucking in, my impatience only halted when there’s an escalation in the football commentary. My spoon would waver, my jaw would drop, my ear turning sideways to the radio. “Goal!!..” roars the commentator. I punch the air in triumph.

Meanwhile, in the dining room, my grandpa would sit alone, meditatively reciting the celebratory songs of the Sabbath – “Lecha dodi liqrat kallah, p’ne Shabbat neqabelah…” – the melody wafting through the kitchen hatch, mingling with the excitable babble of the radio commentator.

Ginger and custard. Religious hymns and football chants. Rituals spiritual and secular. Young and old. Ginger and custard.

And here it is. I have found the source, I have found the past. It is imprinted on this dessert, like a map of sorts, except in place of towns and cities is a web of memories, seemingly disparate moments of my life connecting through its creamy fabric.

The map, however, is fleeting. I am literally eating it. In trying to stem the inevitable, I take ever smaller spoonfuls, so that scoops become slivers, and slivers become so thin, they are practically translucent. Before long, only a few crumbs of biscuit remain. Until they too are gone.

*

Are you a custard lover, or hater? I’d love to know which camp you’re in. And to hear what other foods you also find nostalgic. Meanwhile, for more on the dark history of nutmeg, and on the spice trade in general, here are a couple of fascinating pieces: by Oliver Thring (via The Guardian) and Anna Sulan Masing (via Kavey Eats blog).

Finally, here’s my nostalgic look at the 1980’s, featuring the dessert of the decade (at least according to my 10 year-old self) – the Viennetta.

FENN