Short takes: Marasca, Maraschino, meringue, genoise

[victor steinbok]

Keeping up with my usual culinary theme...

Marasca  1852 -->[ 1836 --> 1838 ]--> 1820
Maraschino  1770 [unchanged]
Maraschino cherry  1900 --> 1896 [1894] <-- clearly can be improved
Maraschino jelly 1850 -->[ 1847 --> 1833 ]--> 1831
Maraschino punch 1820 [additional citations]
meringue [definition enhancement--distinction between types]
Genoise [new]  1847, 1892 ++

An 1807 Italian-English dictionary still finds "Marasca" on the
Italian side with the English "translation" giving "A kind of sour
cherry". (Likely duplicated from earlier dictionaries, such as 1760
Baretti--still reproduced in 1816, 1828 as well.)

http://goo.gl/DEryR
A journey in Carniola, Italy, and France, in the years 1817,1818 .
Volume 2. By William Archibald Cadell. Edinburgh: 1820
p. 18
>
> Maraschino.--At Rimini, and other places on the Adriatic, is to be met with the liqueur Maraschino, made at Zara. The name is derived from Marasca, a kind of wild cherry used in the preparation; Marasca is the same as Amarasca and Amarina, the cherry being so called from its bitter taste.

There are two pieces that may well have served as vectors--aside from
the popularity of the liqueur proper. One was the 1836 Penny
Cyclopaedia. The other was Arboretum et fruticetum britannicum by John
C. Loudon. Loudon grew the trees himself and gave lectures on
horticulture, including his experiments in growing marasca cherry.
Both books suffered multiple editions within the next decade.

Note that all of these refer to Maraschino [liqueur], but there is not
one word about the Maraschino cherries for another 75 years.

http://goo.gl/9yvpV
Report of Work of the Agricultural Experiment Station of the
University of California. For the Year 1894-1895. 1896
EXAMINATION OF PRESERVATIVE LIQUID OF "MARASCHINO CHERRIES.". p. 180

The word "Maraschino" appears only in the title. The analysis is
actually dated 1894.

There are also two recipes with Maraschino cherry from 1899. Well, not
quite. The first is a recipe for rice croquettes. The second is merely
a description (from a dialog) of marshmallow sandwiches.

http://goo.gl/oAEmc
The Boston Cooking-School Magazine. Volume 4:4. December 1899-January 1900
p. 198/2
> Insert a maraschino cherry, or three or four preserved strawberries, in the centre of each croquette.


The Puritan. Volume 6. 1899
A Lunch with Mrs. Allen. By John J. Becket. p. 508
> Have the marshmallows toasted and put a maraschino cherry and little parings of crystallized ginger between.

A few additional references for Maraschino punch (under Maraschino
C1.--the Shelley 1820 date remains intact):

It was tied to Benjamin Franklin:

http://goo.gl/27o7r
Young Benjamin Franklin: or, The Right Road Through Life. By Henry
Mayhew. New York: 1862
Rational Animal No. 11. p. 214
> He had cut off his "night-cap" of Maraschino punch after supper, he said, for he had found out at last that that had been doing him a deal of harm, though it was delicious tipple, to be sure.

No, it was not Franklin to whom the maroon nightcap is ascribed--it
was "the gourmand" with whom Franklin was to have been conversing.

It was mocked anonymously by Thackeray on the pages of Punch--his
authorship of the column was the worst kept secret. (The Book of Snobs
was published two years later.)

http://goo.gl/RVmk9
Punch. Volume 10. 1846
The Snobs of England. Chap. IL. The Snob Royal. p. 115/2
>  He also invented Maraschino punch, a shoe-buckle, (this was in the vigour of his youth, and the prime force of his invention,) and a Chinese pavilion, the most hideous building in the world.

There is a connection between the two aforementioned volumes, as
Mayhew also wrote for Punch.

Punch also has an early instance of "Maraschino jelly".


http://goo.gl/Frxq3
Punch. Volume 12. 1847
Theory and Practice. p. 215/2
> "The following was the bill of fare :--
> "Turtle and iced punch.
> "Salmon, turbot, fried fish, &c.
> "Side-board,--Petits Pates.
> "Chickens, capons, turkey poults, larded; hams and tongues, ornamented; ribs lamb, raised ornamented pies, lobster salads, prawns, Chantilly biscuits, ornamented trifles, noyeau and maraschino jellies, pine, strawberry, and Italian creams; Genvoise pastry, Swiss and Venice merangs. Chantilly tartlets, creamed tarts, Nesselrode puddings, plovers' eggs, &c.


But Punch is not the earliest--apparently, the Maraschino jelly was
popularized in the 1830s, and not necessarily as dessert.

http://goo.gl/1kVme
The cook's dictionary, and housekeeper's directory. By Richard Dolby.
London: 1833
p. [menu list early in the volume, no page number] Second Course
> Maraschino Jelly

Another cite is a bit puzzling because it's only a snippet view. But
there are 46 pages with 1831 and 6 pages with 1832, so it's almost
certain that the date is from one or the other.

http://goo.gl/ILv4t
The Metropolitan. Vols. 2-3. 1831-1832.
[p. 16?]
> ... but from which luncheons and all intermediate refections, together with ice, champagne, Roman punch, and Maraschino jellies, are severely banished.

The original is at Oxford, so if someone can verify this, the date can
be ascertained further. It is also possible that Maraschino Jelly
(second course--aspic?) and Maraschino jellies (dessert--candy?)
referred to different kinds of food, neither still extant.

Of particular note in Punch is the reference to "Swiss and Venice
merangs". OED only has one entry for "meringue" (plus derivatives,
including a desert made of meringue and fruit and "Chantilly
meringue").

>A light mixture of stiffly beaten egg whites and sugar, baked until crisp; a shell or other item of confectionery made of this mixture, typically decorated or filled with whipped cream.
> In some recipes, esp. when meringue is used as a topping, cooking of the mixture is stopped before it is completely crisp: cf. snow n.1 5a.

This is not quite correct. There are three different methods for
preparing meringue and the OED article was clearly written by someone
who was not familiar with the distinction. The baked, crispy meringue
is usually identified as the "French meringue". The other kind, the
one that remains somewhat gelatinous, without a crunchy shell, is the
"Italian meringue", made by whisking hot sugar syrup into pre-whipped
egg whites--the one here, apparently, referred to as "Venice merang".
These are quite distinct and share only the main ingredients--sugar
and whipped egg whites. The consistency of the Italian meringue allows
it to be sometimes used as cream filling for pastry. It is also the
traditional top layer on the lemon chiffon pie and in Baked Alaska.
The Swiss meringue combines the two--it's whipped in a water bath,
then baked for crisp effect.

But what about the "Swiss merangs"? OED gives an "uncertain"
etymology, essentially just listing variants of the word in different
languages. (Dutch appears to be the only West European language that
has a native word for it. Interestingly, Slavic languages use a
variant of a completely unrelated apparently French word--Polish,
Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian and Ukrainian all use variants of
"bise/beze"--note that Google gives wrong translations for Russian and
Ukrainian, no translation for Lithuanian, and names of individual
desserts rather than the category for Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak.
Of course, if the Russian/Polish version was indeed derived from
French, then the Bulgarian name целувка is simply a calque for
"kiss".) Wiki gives two versions, including one that is "contested"
(from a Swiss town of Meiringen, which certainly /sounds/ unlikely),
the other simply an invented word by a French chef whose cookbook
appeared in English translation the same year as the word popped up in
Phillips's New Words (1706). Wiki also connects an earlier appearance
of a similar recipe as "pets"  to contemporary French usage (in the
Loire), which it translates as "farts" (as does Google--which is about
as far from "kiss" as one can get).

The bottom line is that the OED entry description is wrong--or, more
accurately, incomplete.

Another culinary standard item that is missing from the OED is
Genoise, as in Genoise pastry. The reality in modern baking is that
basic cakes made with no leavening are simply referred to as Genoise
(occasionally with proper diacritics). There is a citation in the OED
under mocha adj. B. 1.

> 1892    A. B. Marshall Larger Cookery Bk. xii. 475   Moka Cake.‥ Prepare a Genoise paste mixture‥, bake for an hour and a quarter, then turn out, and, when cold, mask over with Coffee glace.

But the Punch citation above is 45 years earlier! Both should find
their way into the new entry, when it is established.

VS-)

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