I can't believe no one can give me an answer, surely someone must have an idea.

My husband always turns his nose up if I say we are having quiche for dinner and says "real men don't eat quiche" I think its from Men Behaving Badly. Anyway does a tart have toppings above the eggy filling? I saw a turkey and cranberry tart the other day with the cranberrys on the top.

Pure guess but I think a tart is covered and a flan is an open tart and a Quiche refers to a flan with an egg filling. This might be total nonsense but since no one else seems to know its as good an idea as any.

But what about a jam tart - that isn't covered? Is a tart sweet and a flan savoury - I'm not sure either. Surely somebody out there knows!

Did a little browsing and this is what I came up with. Thought I would include 'Pie' just to confuse the issue.

Flan - a case of pastry or cake without a top, which contains fruit or something savoury such as cheese.

Quiche - an open pastry case, filled with a mixture of eggs, cream and other savoury foods, which is baked and eaten hot or cold.

Tart - an open pastry case with a filling, usually of something sweet such as fruit.

Pie - a type of food made with meat, vegetables or fruit covered in pastry and baked:

well done Livewire - guess a tart is also a kind of a flan then??!!

Something else - an in-law of mine in his 80's won't eat quiche because it's "foreign" but if you tell him it's "flan", he'll eat it quite happily!

Or, lol, maybe a pie just means covered, as in fish pie, shepherds pie, lemon meringue pie.......

I do remember we had this discussion before, and decided in the end it could have gone on forever.

Talking of which, did anyone watch Full on Food last night and see Jenny Bond's fish pie with meringue topping, different idea?

Fish pie with meringue topping? How did she make the meringue savoury? This sounds really interesting.

Yes it doesn't sound great but it was apparently on TV so I am hanging out to hear about it ....

Aus is great Trudi

Heven't we been eating egg and bacon flan in England for ages...surely before quiche was invented?

The meringue topping had cheese folded into it to make it savoury,and she used a mix of fish as the base.
Does anyone else find the audience really irritating, every time someone says anything they start cackling. Terrible. i think someone gives them a happy pill before the show starts.

Thanks jennifer264. So I assume it was a kind of souffle topping then. I might try it! I haven't got any haddock but I may make a whiting meringue pie tonight! Will let you know how it comes out. I love trying new things.

Thanks too everyone for all the info