Dunedin's great custard sag saga

Press, 29 April 1981, Page 14

Dunedin's great custard sag saga

By

Lynley Hood,

in Dunedin

So you fell about laughing did you. at Prince Charles' recollections: when he said, while in Dunedin, that the only memory he had of his previous visit to the University of Otago was of seeing a group of students earnestly measuring the percentage sag of egg custard? Well, get this straight. The Great Custard Sag Experiment is a serious matter.

Recently 60 home science students repeated the experiment, as have students every year for as far back as anyone can remember.

This is how it's done. You mix egg, milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla together in what Foods Lecturer, Margaret Hogg calls, . a standard custard recipe such as you would : use in your own home.” (Plebs who use custard powder need read no further, this is outside your league.) You pour the mixture into a glass cup and cook it in a water bath. When the custard

is set. golden and velvety, its height in the cup is measured. Then conies the moment of truth. You up-end it onto a flat plate.

In the skilled hands of home science students the product does not flow off the plate in a watery and lumpy tide. It sits there, defying gravity.

To find out just how defiant your custard is you measure its height once again. It then takes only elementary maths to calculate the percentage sag. Home science students use this experiment to compare the coagulating properties of different types of eggs (fresh, powdered, and evaporated varieties). In this way they learn how a decent egg custard is made, and if they pay attention in lectures they also learn why. From thesestudents come the dieticians, teachers, and food industry consultants of

the future. Some may even go on to develop new and better custard powders. Of course, there, is another puspose to the Great Custard Sag Experiment, a purpose which in the solemnity of the Home Science School is quite overlooked. To everyone else, from the noblest of royalty to the commonest of commoner, that purpose is dazzlingly

clear. The Prince who smiled when he saw it, who grinned when he spoke about it. the people who laughed when they heard about it, and chuckled when they read about it: they knew. In these dark and troubled times they knew all right. The true and ultimate purpose of the Great Custard Sag Experiment is to cheer people up.