JUNKET  , a dish of

milk curdled by rennet, served with clotted cream and flavoured with nutmeg, which is particularly associated in England with Devonshire and Cornwall . The word is of somewhat obscure history . It appears to come through O . Fr. jonquette, a rush-basket, from Lat. juncus, rush . In Norman dialect this word is used of a cream cheese . The commonly accepted origin is that it refers to the rush-basket on which such cream cheeses or curds were served . Juncade appears in Rabelais, and is explained by Cotgrave as " spoon-meat, rose-water and sugar." Nicholas Udall (in his translation of Erasmus's Apophthegms, 1542) speaks of " marchepaines or wafers with other like junkerie." The word " junket " is also used for a festivity or picnic .