Flamiche

Two possible derivations have been advanced for the word flamiche: either that it comes from , 'flame', as the dish was traditionally cooked in a wood-burning oven, or that it is a corruption of – Flemish (the dish being native to north-west France, close to the border with Flanders). ==History==

The term dates from medieval times. Jean Froissart's Chronicles, dating from the 14th century, mention people eating "a little torte in the manner of a flamiche or beignet to comfort their stomachs". In his Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (1611), Randle Cotgrave applies the term to "a cake made of butter, cheese, flower, and yolkes of egges". In his Encyclopédie méthodique (1782) Jacques Lacombe describes a flamiche as "A kind of pastry made with salty fatty cheese, butter, eggs, flour & seasoning. The dough is cut into thick pieces of two fingers, and baked in the oven". ==Modern version==

As late as the 1880s there is no mention of leeks in the definition in the : "Name, in some provinces, of a pastry made of cheese, butter and eggs", but in 1910 a French journal described a flamiche as "a flour dough, buttered inside with leeks cut into small pieces", originating in Péronne, Somme. Montagné does not specify the type of pastry to be used; Hopkinson uses puff; Elizabeth David suggests a crumbly shortcrust; Anne Willan uses a yeast dough similar to that used in pizzas. Clarissa Dickson Wright specifies a brioche dough, and although her recipe contains leeks, she comments that flamiche "can be filled with whatever you like". ==Notes==