Like everyone born between the early 1980s and the late 1990s, I belong to the "Flanby generation." I've lived through the Gulf War, Princess Diana's death, the [satirical TV puppet show] Guignols de l'Info, the Discman and the beginnings of the internet. And, like all millennials, I've gobbled up astronomical quantities of that famous dessert: a kind of very sweet, caramel flan, recognizable by its transparent container and fluted sides.

All the marketing genius of the product distributed by the Chambourcy brand lies in the small aluminum seal that was attached upside down to its base. A relatively popular trend among 5-12-year-olds, largely inspired by TV commercials, involved overturning the pot onto a plate and then pulling the tab to create a suction effect. A river of industrial syrup then flowed down both sides of what looked like a plump, pretty flan – in reality, it was a mountain of yellowish, ultra-processed, jellied milk. This simple yet playful dessert, which was even found on canteen tables, was always a hit – even though, these days, the list of ingredients on the back of the label (artificial flavoring, colorings, gelling agents and modified starch) would be plenty to trigger alarm on any Nutri-score scale (the front-of-pack nutrition label found on certain French products).

Even so, I've long held a special affection for Flanby. Slightly prone to Peter Pan syndrome, I'd sometimes buy half a dozen of them and stash them away, guiltily, at the bottom of the crisper in my fridge. Enjoying a pot of Flanby – in the same way as drinking a brick of Candy'Up (a chocolate drink) or a bottle of Orangina (an orange soda) – was a way for me to cultivate a form of childish nostalgia; to remember the taste of an era, the 1990s, when we seemed more concerned with a food product's aesthetics than its real nutritional value. Unfortunately, this meant I now associated the taste of flan with that of Flanby.

The flans I settled on tended to have a very gelatinous texture, a flavor that was anything but natural and, come to think of it, looked more like a kind of edible play dough than a real dessert. It wasn't until I had the opportunity to taste some excellent pastry flans (from Anthony Bosson's L'Essentiel bakeries, or Cyril Lignac's Paris pastry shops, among many others) that I became fully aware of the flavor delight I'd been missing out on all these years.

"Due to the widespread industrialization of bakeries and their production lines between the 1990s and 2000s, flan has suffered greatly from its image as a low-end dessert," said journalist François Blanc, by phone. "We've all experienced that tasteless cake, often defrosted and made from custard powder: that industrial mixture, packed with additives, which gives it that strong yellow color, as well as a mushy appearance. However, when made in an artisan way, flan offers an incredible variety of textures and flavors. In such instances, eating a flan – whether sitting, standing or walking – becomes a simple, non-intellectual thing: an absolute, immediate and extremely comforting pleasure."

You have 60% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.