A thin, open-faced pastry or tart base, especially one made from shortcrust pastry.
From Old French 'flaon' or Latin 'flado,' originally meaning a flat cake or pastry; related to Germanic words for 'flat' and evolved through Middle English as a baking term.
Medieval cooks distinguished between 'flon' (open pastry base) and 'pie' (enclosed), which is why even today, a tart in French is called a 'flan'—the naming system stuck around for 800+ years.
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