Man with a flan

As well as being tasty and nutritious, custard seems to have become the dessert of choice for political protesters.

The recent direct hit on the unremittingly suave Peter Mandelson by an environmental protester with what was described as “green custard” brings to mind a similar assault a few years ago by the Biotic Baking Brigade (Campsfield High Command branch) on the then Shadow Home Secretary Anne Widdecombe. On that occasion, a fully formed custard pie, complete with pastry base, was used, presumably to highlight her half-baked ideas about law and order. It led, inevitably, to her being dubbed ‘Flan Widdicombe’, but in her case, even a face full of custard couldn’t make her more ridiculous than she already was.

Like eggs, and rotten tomatoes, the custard pie and its variants have a rich heritage of use as humour-laden projectile. Immigration Minister Phil Woolas was hit with a “creamy vegan pie” in Manchester, Clare Short got a first-hand taste of a weapon of mass delectation at the University of Bangor, and Bill Gates famously sampled a “tarte au crème-Anglaise” while on a trip to Belgium in 2000. Lucky him – the Belgians do really good patisserie.

Swedish King Karl Gustav was hit with a strawberry tart, ably thrown by a 16-year-old boy who was subsequently wrestled to the ground by Queen Silvia, but a tofu pie hurled at Karl Lagerfeld by anti fur group PETA unfortunately missed its target. On the plus side, it hit Calvin Klein instead.

“Flanning” or “pieing”, as it is known, is not as ad-hoc as you might think. The Biotic Baking Brigade are a highly organised San Francisco-based outfit who have notched up successful hits on high-profile targets around the world and even released a video and cookbook chronicling their pastry action.

And never to be outdone in the political protest stakes, the Dutch have their very own home-baked flan-flinging collective – TAART. To their credit, they use 100% organic ingredients…

Hone your pie throwing technique here.