[Sca-cooks] Gilded gingerbread query

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Thu Jan 4 14:38:19 PST 2007


On Jan 4, 2007, at 5:02 PM, Johnna Holloway wrote:

> Seems to date from the 18th19th centuries
> OED says under gingerbread*
> *
>     (1766) *Smollett* /Trav./ Let. xxx. II. 104 "Yet the rooms are too
>     small, and too much decorated with carving and gilding, which is a
>     kind of gingerbread work. "
>     (1840) *R. H. Dana* /Bef. Mast/ xxii. 66 "There was no foolish
>     gilding and gingerbread work to take the eye of landsmen and
>     passengers. "
>     (1844) *Tupper* /Heart/ xiii. 135 "His distant relative's good
>     feeling..served indeed to gild the future, but did not avail to
>     gingerbread the present. "
>
>     Another quote is found under ship-shape
>     (1840) *R. H. Dana* /Bef. Mast/ xxii, "There was no foolish  
> gilding
>     and gingerbread work,..but everything was `ship-shape'. "
>
> You might suggest to your correspondent to check out House on the Hill
> for gingerbread molds. They sell powdered dusts and paints for  
> coloring
> the finished cookies.http://www.houseonthehill.net/
>
> Johnnae

There's that company (whose showroom is like a Disneyland for  
confectioners) on 22nd Street just east of 6th Avenue in Manhattan,  
but whose name is something uninspired like, The NY Cake Decorating  
Company...

But I'm struck, in the post above, that the citations appear more to  
equate gingerbread with embellishment and gilding (as in, a house  
with gingerbread trim), than to indicate that gingerbread was  
embellished.

Which is not intended as a critique. And don't mind me; well-meaning  
souls saw fit to present us with various "gourmet" coffees over the  
holidays, and after several false starts (French roast -- phooey!) in  
self-defense we had to order a supply of legitimately good stuff  
which just arrived. I'm pretty high on an excessively strong batch of  
half Colombian and half Jamaican Blue Mountain, all "city roast"...

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04





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