My earliest encounters with British food came from Roald Dahl's books. His characters were always sucking on lollies and eating jam, getting biscuit crumbs in their beards and making Toad in the Hole. From one of my favorites, Danny the Champion of the World: 

Very carefully, I now began to unwrap the waxed paper from around the doctor’s present, and when I had finished, I saw before me the most enormous and beautiful pie in the world. It was covered all over, top, sides, and bottom, with rich golden pastry. I took a knife from beside the sink and cut out a wedge. I started to eat it in my fingers, standing up. It was a cold meat pie. The meat was pink and tender with no fat or gristle in it, and there were hard-boiled eggs buried like treasures in several different places. The taste was absolutely fabulous. When I had finished the first slice I cut another and ate that, too. God bless Doctor Spencer, I thought.

Food was often a theme: a commodity, an activity, even a weapon. In Dahl's adult work, which is as wild, enjoyable, and subversive as his children's stories, a lifelong vegetarian finds religion in a hot dog, not knowing its contents, and a wife clubs her husband to death with a leg of lamb, then roasts it and serves it to the investigating detectives. A leg of lamb! Even in his most vile and violent, his food—at least compared to run-of-the-mill American food—always provided an accent to the action. 

So when on the curving high street in Rye, having spotted an old-fashioned sweets shop, its windows lined with rows of candy jars, I immediately remembered Dahl's quintessentially British descriptions.* His lickable wallpaper, 3-course-dinner gum, Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. Happily, the real candy is just as exotic. Names vacillate willy nilly between the stuff of exuberant childlike fantasy and brain-chemistry–altering drugs: Coltsfoot Rock, Parma Violets, Lime Crystals, Fizzy Fangs, Winter Nips, Acid Drops, and the ever-mystifying Pink Shrimps.**

I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but one particular candy did get my imagination going: Rhubarb and Custard.  

I love real custard, in the form of ice cream (i.e. frozen custard), or in a trifle, or just in a bowl with ripe, cut-up fruit. And while chocolate pudding and panna cotta have devotion high and low, vanilla custard doesn't receive any attention, despite it being sweet, smooth, and dead simple to make.

Rhubarb has a similar fate. Seasonal and beautifully ruby-green, it never gets the parade that strawberries and cherries do. Perhaps its looking like celery doesn't move people. Tant pis. A "compote" of it is only as complicated as chopping it, sprinkling in some sugar and water, and cooking it until it slumps—10 minutes of prep and cooking combined, tops. 

The only potentially tricky part of custard, and likely why there is a whole industry based on instant custard—Bird's here in the UK, or Jell-O or My-T-Fine in the States—is that you have to take care not to scramble the eggs when cooking it. This is not difficult. Just temper your egg yolk mixture with a little hot milk at a time, whisking all the while, until the milk is fully incorporated and the mixture gets poured back in the pan to cook on the stove. My mom also adds a little flour to the egg yolks to stabilize the mixture; and whatever my mom does in the kitchen, I follow. It hasn't failed me. 

What you do with this custard is your own business. I like it with this rhubarb compote, its mellow sour bite a delicious foil against the sweet. A piece of shortbread or a cookie adds some texture. Fresh fruit is also delicious drizzled with it. You can get more ambitious too. The three leftover egg whites can make a meringue—it's classic to pair the two (like in a Pavlova)—and while I personally don't love the tooth-sticking tackiness of meringues, I appreciate the resourcefulness. Another extravagant option, using the egg whites, is my childhood favorite, Îles flottantes (meaning floating islands), a French dessert where beaten egg whites are poached in milk to an foamy etheralness and served floating in a pool of custard and caramel.

Or lose the distractions and just eat a cup of it, ice cold from the fridge, standing up next to the sink, Roald Dahl style. I don't think he would have judged you, and neither would I. 

Vanilla Custard

In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 egg yolks, a heaping teaspoon of flour (optional), 1/3 cup sugar, and a pinch of salt. Meanwhile, heat 1 cup of whole milk in a small sauce pan, but do not let it boil. While whisking the egg mixture constantly, very slowly dribble the hot milk into the eggs. (Doing this slowly will bring the temperature of the eggs up slowly, so they do not scramble.) Once the milk is all whisked in, pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly. Do not multitask—if you leave the custard alone it could scramble. When it's thickened to the point where you can draw an articulated line through it in the back of your wooden spoon, remove it from the heat and transfer to a bowl. Continue stirring to help it cool down fast—you can ice bath it if you want to be sure. When cooled, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla and refrigerate. Serve cold. 

Rhubarb Compote

Chop a few stalks of trimmed rhubarb and add to a small saucepan. Sprinkle over a tablespoon or two of sugar (you can always add more if it's not sweet enough) and a splash of water. A few drops of lemon juice adds a little dimension, if you have one around. Cook on low heat until broken down and jammy, about 5 to 10 minutes. Refrigerate. 

* I'm also convinced Roald Dahl called water fountains "bubblers," and since childhood I accepted it as British English. But my husband has never heard it, and I've yet to find proof. Until then, I haven't had the nerve to ask a museum guard or the like where I could find a bubbler, for fear of being misunderstood, and possibly ridiculed. 

** I have a real love/hate relationship with the word shrimps. To me, shrimp already functions as a plural, so "shrimps" clangs loudly in my head, like the equivalent of adding an apostrophe where one is not needed. Similarly, I do not like the word "hairs"—yuck. Yet Pink Shrimps would make a compelling band name.