Desserts

Mexico Of all the peoples introduced to this dessert, the Spanish were particularly taken with it (and were the first to top it with a sweet caramel sauce). Like the Romans before them, the Spaniards brought flan to new lands, when in 1518, the famous conquistador Hernán Cortés landed in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

Vermonters call this "sugar on snow," and we love it so much that we theme entire parties around it. We pack garbage bags full of fresh, clean snow into our freezers in the depths of winter, dreaming of a sweet spring. We buy candy thermometers so we can boil a pot of syrup to just the right temperature to congeal on a bed of snow.