[Sca-cooks] Bad Editing: Was panpepati was Pancakes and Fruitcakes

[Elise Fleming]

Greetings!  Johnnae (and someone else?) pointed out that the Duke d'Este 
couldn't have served chocolate pampapati in 1465. (Columbus hadn't even 
made his first voyage then!)  I'd thought of that at first and then I 
got to thinking that the paragraph might have suffered from poor writing 
or sloppy editing.  It says:

 > The reference is: ?The Christmas-New Years holidays are marked by the
 > appearance in pastry-shop windows of pampepato di ciccolato, a very
 > old Ferrarese sweet. It is a cake made of flour, cocoa, milk, honey
 > (sugar if honey is not at hand), pepper, spices, almonds, and lemon
 > peel with chocolate frosting powdered with sugar and tiny candies. It
 > is of ancient lineage. Duke Borso d?Este served pampapati at a banquet
 > on November 11, 1465, making them exceptionally appetizing by
 > inserting a gold piece in each."

I think that the comment about the Duke isn't referring to the pampepato 
di ciccolato, but that there's a reference to the Duke being served 
pampapati.  Because that sentence comes just after the chocolate 
reference and description, it would be logical to assume that his 
pampapati is the same as the pampetato di ciccolato.  What would have 
helped would have been to start a new paragraph with "It is of ancient 
lineage" and said something like "There is a reference to 'pampapati' in 
an account describing a banquet given by the Duke Borso d'Este on 
November 11..."  While that isn't perfect, it would be less likely to 
link chocolate and 1465.

Alys K.
-- 
Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/