Friday, November 12, 2010

Custard > Nog

When I was young and the holiday season came upon us (in those days, that meant after Halloween) two new products would magically appear in the grocers' dairy section - boiled custard and egg nog. Every year my family bought boiled custard because we all liked boiled custard, and egg nog because my parents were raised to buy egg nog without question. It was kind of like religion except that nobody got nailed to anything.

At some point we realized that our routine was to buy both, sip the nog, say "Bleah!", turn to the custard carton which was inevitably empty, and then decide to have a Pepsi for breakfast instead*. Over time our diet improved, by which I mean we quit buying nog and added Mountain Dew, and so our status as egg nog fundamentalists came to an end.

Full disclosure - despite the fact that my family tried more religions than breakfast cereals, we were never really religious. However, the entire family did have a Baptist fundy's negative view on alcohol (aka liquid Satan). As such, I grew up hearing vague rumors that some very few weirdos added booze to their nog, but I've never tried it that way myself.

Over the years, as holiday ornaments began making their appearance dangerously close to summer, we noticed a disturbing shift in the nog to custard ratio. My earliest memories were that it was always a 50 / 50 split between the two, but the custard was beginning to wane as the shelves became overgrown with nog. You could still score custard if you went to multiple stores and were willing to buy an inconvenient size made by an unknown brand that was legally obligated to put quotes around anything denoting it as a "dairy product". And then the Gulf War, part one, occurred and I personally ensured that no member of the Iraqi Republican Guard made it into your homes and you rewarded me by completely replacing the custard with more nog.

Seriously - nog? What the hell is that anyway? Nog sounds like an onomatopoeic word for the act of regurgitation. "Dude, I totally downed too many mimosas last night. I think I'm gonna nog." And the weird thing is that I can't find a single person who has ever tried boiled custard or even remembers seeing it in the stores in the 70's and 80's.

Fortunately Target brought an end to my custard drought. While the drug bunnies put pills in bottles for me, I wandered into their tiny dairy section (it's a regular Target, not one of the giant mega supers) and found exactly one size and brand of custard and the same size and brand of nog. Not only does Target give me drug bunnies, it has restored balance to the force with an equal ratio of seasonal dairy treats. And so I bought a bottle, happy with the knowledge that nobody else will drink it because they think it sounds weird and they never had it growing up. Every time I get a beer I can give it a little glance and get a quick feeling of nostalgia until next week when it goes past the expiration date and I have to throw it out. (I can't drink it myself because it's basically sugar molecules bonded together with liquid fat and on the list of things I shouldn't ingest it falls somewhere between ice cream cake and cyanide)

As final proof of the superiority of custard over nog, here are both represented on the awesomeness chart:
The chart is in color, so you know it's true and accurate. USA Today works like that.

And just because I want this post to get more than three comments - pedophilia.

* unrelated note - I have no idea how my family got diabetes

9 comments:

Coal Miner's Granddaughter said...

My husband's grandfather would put Maker's Mark in his egg nog. Basically, it was more nog than egg. Like, your head would spin Exorcist-style when you drank it. Thankfully, the recipe died with him.

Pearl said...

Still noggin' it up over here - cut with a little milk.

Traditionalists, you know.

Pearl

p.s. pedophilia

Tracy Lynn said...

My family had nog, but that stuff is shite and I'm pretty sure the Milk Of Satan, as in, if you could milk Satan, you would get nog.

Also, I think you custard is imaginary.

Jay said...

I don't do egg nog. Or boiled custard. Well, egg nog with some Maker's Mark would be acceptable.

I wish we had drug bunnies here.

Maundering mutterer said...

Never knew nog was so popular.. er unpopular (?) over there. No-one here drinks it, I've never seen it in any supermarket ever, and I'm one of those few, those lucky few that know what it contains and therefore refrains from drinking it (the rest don't know what it is or how its made or even that it exists and are spared temptation).

Maundering mutterer said...

PS: But then again, I come from Africa

Avitable said...

I've never had boiled custard, but my family always gets egg nog. They usually cut it with some milk to make it easier to drink. I loved it.

And apparently your pedophilia trick worked - it's a comment magnet!

Grant said...

Coal Miner's Granddaughter - somehow booze and dairy together seems as appealing as mashed potatoes topped with hot fudge.

Pearl - I see the nog conspirators got to you first.

Tracy Lynn - Satanic milk sounds kind of metal, but yeah, nog sucks.

Jay - I only have three drug bunnies at the local Target pharmacy, so I can't spare any.

Maundering mutterer - I'd be willing to trade our traditional nog for more Asian women here.

Avitable - who doesn't find seven year old girls sexy and blog comment-worthy?

Amycakes said...

I just tried custard nog for the first time tonight. I had never seen it in the grocery store before, despite being born in the mid-70s. I liked egg nog as a kid but have liked it less and less as I've gotten older. (Perhaps the recipe has changed a bit over time?) I loved the C.F. Burger custard nog I tried tonight. I think it's far superior to egg nog. I found this post on a google search for "custard nog" to learn more about it.