shortcake

[Barbara Need]

Well, I will have to check the next time  I am in a grocery store
here in Chicago (I know just what to look for).

I, however, agree with you--shortcake is more like a biscuit
(linguistically, not culinarily) like shortbread--so when a local
restaurant is advertising three kinds of BBQ with "Strawberry
Shortcake" for dessert, I look at the visual of what appears to be
yellow cake (cut square) with strawberry sauce and whipped cream, and
say to myself, well, If ever when there for the BBQ, I would not get
*that* dessert!

Barbara

Barbara Need
Chicago

On 26 Jun 2008, at 13:03, Charles Doyle wrote:

> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
>
> Recently my wife and I were served what was announced as
> "strawberry shortcake." It arrived in the form of a shallow cup
> molded from a sponge-cakey substance (a little like the outside of
> a Twinkie), with a few berries in the declivity on top and a
> quantity of whipped cream (probaly fake). I muttered that the
> pastry was not shortcake--which in my gustatory lexicon should
> resemble a biscuit with a little sugar added to the dough; after
> baking, it would be served whole or halved, with berries spooned
> over it (whipped cream optional).
>
> My wife, from Chicago, opined (folk etymologically) that the cakey
> pastry in front of us was authentic shortcake--so called because it
> is less tall than sheetcake or tubecake! Evidently, those "short"
> cakes of small diameter can be storeboughten, in packaages (my wife
> maintains) that are labeled "shortcake."
>
> Is there a regional distinction here, or what? Or have gullible
> consumers simply been lied to?
>
> --Charlie

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