Strawberry Shortcake

No, not the dolls; the real thing. I told Monika I would put up an essay by food writer James Villas on the subject of strawberry shortcake, but the essay is longer than I remembered it, so I'll just put some excerpts here. This is from "Strawberry Shortcake," Villas at Table, Harper & Row, 1988, pp. 257-263.

In the first place, I remembered a lot of it incorrectly. Villas does not refrigerate his strawberries! On the contrary, he recommends warming them slightly and serving them with British double or clotted cream. Secondly, it isn't Villas who describes the experience of eating strawberry shortcake; instead, he quotes "the New England gastronome John Thorne: 'A bite of real strawberry shortcake is a mouthful of contrast. The rich, sweet cream, the tart juicy berries, and the sour, crumbly texture of hot biscuit all refuse to amalgam into a single flavor tone, but produce mouth-stimulating contrasts of flavor--hot and cold, soft and hard, sweet and tart, smooth and crumbly. The mouth is alert and enchanted at once.'"

Villas notes that Shakespeare mentions "shortcake" in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and adds, "...it is fairly obvious that a direct historical link can be established between this confection and the ancient British tradition of smearing strawberry preserves and thick double or clotted cream over warm scones and other forms of short pastry." He then refers to the tradition of strawberry shortcake in such classic American cookbooks as Mary Lincoln's 1883 Boston Cookbook, Fannie Farmer's 1896 Boston Cooking School Cookbook, and the 1908 Women's Club Cook Book of Charlotte, NC

"Now for the very sensitive and touchy question as to whether genuine strawberry shortcake should be made with biscuit or scone dough or sponge cake. Most Southerners and Midwesterners simply could not conceive of eating real shortcake not made with some form of short pastry; Yankees, who've never really understood what biscuits are all about, generally maintain that shortcake is synonymous with sponge cake.... Since I must say that, over the years, I've savored some very decent strawberry shortcake prepared with sponge pastry (most memorably at the old Lindy's in New York), I'd almost be willing to attribute high status to this version were it not for one important culinary fact: the word 'shortcake' indicates automatically that shortening (or some form of fat) is a major ingredient in the pastry, and since sponge cake contains no trace of fat, it cannot qualify as an authentic foundation for the dessert."

He ends with no fewer than four recipes for strawberry shortcake, but since it might be a violation of copyright to put them here, I'll only say that he includes a shortcake recipe from Mary Lincoln's Boston Cook Book (link above).

Me? I was brought up by a Southern mother, and we ate shortcake-style shortcake. No doubt Mr. Villas would turn up his nose at the 1950s shortcuts, but aren't the recipes of one's childhood always the best? The recipe for classic Bisquick strawberry shortcake can be found here