Spider Cake (1895)

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:55 PM -0500 3/6/04, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>SPIDER CAKE
>
>    "Spider cake" is in this Sunday's NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE.  "Bannock" was
>mentioned on rec.food.historic.  Again, I don't know what DARE has for "spider
>cake," but I supplied a few posts.  Below is one from 1895.

Indeed.  Barry posts confirm my reaction when I read this article
earlier this evening...

>
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/magazine/07FOOD.html?pagewanted=2
>Easier to realize in your own kitchen is a creamy, corny skillet preparation
>from New England called spider cake, which has delighted roomfuls of people
>every time I've served it. So-called because of the veins created by the cream
>in its vortex, which separates the crumb during baking, this substantial
>one-skillet meal will get your kids to school happier than they've
>ever been, and
>you happy only if they've left some behind.

...which was that, pace Jonathan Reynolds (author of this piece),
spider cake *isn't* so-called because of the "veins created by the
cream in its votex", but rather for the same reason skillet corn
bread is so-called--because it's made in one.   Nice to have the
evidence to prove it!

larry horn