A Fresh Flan

“I can't mess this up,” Jerry said to himself as he tried to recall the recipe. He looked it up online and saw that it required making a caramel and a simple custard, then baked in a water bath. Jerry's grandmother had added in something extra to her flan that made it taste different from any other flan he had ever had – he just needed to remember what that was. His one year on the job at a local star-up tech was a dream come true. The first company party happened to be for the holidays and all were asked to bring something to share. Naturally, he knew he could wow his coworkers with a well executed flan.

Jerry's grandmother had always been a miserable cook. She refused to believe expiration dates and would often be heard saying, “No mijo, that's just there to trick you into buying it quickly,” which made zero sense. Jerry got in the habit of asking his grandma if the food was fresh, to which she always reassured him that she made food overwhelmed with the love of nurturing. Time and again, those words comforted Jerry, and the deep set eyes of his grandmother, that always seemed near to tears when she went on about how Jerry was her corazón, drove him to want to make her happy. He'd sit down with the plate of food, and would dive in before making a thorough check of the ingredients. Once, he was in such denial that love equated to attention to detail, that he knowingly took a huge mouthful of rotten cheese melted all over some enchiladas. The fault was always his. Jerry knew his grandmother well.

San Antonio, Texas was hard on Luz. Her family had traced their lineage to before the border was moved to its present day location on the Rio Grande, and they had owned a tiny parcel of land growing figs. Swindled out of their home and orchard, Luz's father moved them near downtown to be closer to potential employment. Rice and beans had been the family staple, with the occasional overripe piece of fruit as a treat. For some lost reason, Luz would half cooking times when it was her turn to make food for the family. Her parents were always happy that she put in the effort to be helpful without them asking, but they unknowingly enabled her uncompromising shenanigans in the kitchen.

Growing up impoverished made Luz distrustful of any suggestion against her survival impulse. She had prided herself on once swallowing a pebble when she had nothing else to eat, and loved telling the story when she sent Jerry's father to school with a couple ketchup packets for lunch. Survival was being fed, no matter what took up space in someone's belly. Ironically, she gave herself food poisoning eating questionable chicken which landed her in the hospital, where she died of a secondary sepsis infection. She would've wanted to go that way Jerry would tell himself, and she was unapologetic up to the moment she passed away. Luz's warped culinary approach didn't stop her from throwing together a rich and satisfying flan.

Jerry liked to think out loud. “First I make the caramel and then the custard...” He trailed off because mouthing the recipe he read off a website was not going to give his flan the extra pop he was hoping to conjure up. Trying to make sense of Luz's cooking was useless, unless Jerry though it funny to add in some rotten eggs to be true to his grandmother. Resisting that temptation, Jerry followed the recipe he found and thought it satisfactory to at least show up with something homemade.

Noticing his time running out, Jerry removed the flan from the oven and set it aside to cool. He had come to terms that he should've made the flan the night before to allow the custard to set in the fridge. No matter. Surely the process could be sped up in the freezer. Shortcutting the recipe felt like an appropriate homage to Luz.

* * *

Company parties can be awkward, and this one ended up being no exception. It took a few trips to the open bar before everyone was comfortable with the prospect of being seen inebriated. Too many people commented that the flan had not fully set, and Jerry wondered sardonically who made them all such fantastic culinary critics. The age of cooking networks transformed the casual masses into connoisseurs of fine eating apparently.

A few hours into the event, one younger intern complained of having an upset stomach. Jerry chuckled at the thought of his grandmother being there to tell her that “it had nothing to do with my flan!” Before a family member could suggest that the food had made them sick, Luz would've already pounced on the topic and was in full defense of her cooking. Jerry never remembered his grandmother's flan making him sick, which he began to wonder if that was the secret effect of eating the dessert that he had nostalgia for. 

The party ended and Jerry grabbed his cookware on the way out. Multiple people ended up with upset stomachs, but he kept that to himself. In an act of semi-racist prejudice, most of the stricken blamed somebody's Tikka Masala. Not willing to prove them wrong, Jerry had noted that everyone who got sick had eaten a sizable portion of his flan. One of the IT support staff commented that his flan “was the best he ever had!” Nonsense thought Jerry. He threw that up to how White people exaggerate when they only sort-of like something, but he took the compliment with grace and mentioned to his coworker that the recipe came down from his grandmother. Jerry had worked with this guy for the better part of six months, and struggled to get through the chit-chat without wanting to openly admit that he never caught his name. With that exchange over, Jerry was free to go home. On the way back to his apartment, Jerry promised himself that he would practice the recipe and make sure that all the ingredients were fresh the next time he felt that a flan was in order.