[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks] Slumps

[Claire Clarke]

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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:50:13 -0400
From: Johnna Holloway <johnnae at mac.com>

It's OT and OP but there's an article on making slumps in the Chicago  
Tribune food section.
Summer slump. What could be simpler than simmering dumplings on top of  
seasonal fruit?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/newsletter/sns-newsletter-summer
-cobbler,0,1626297.story

http://tinyurl.com/2d5zald

Slumps are fruit desserts that can be simmered on top of the stove or  
even carefully cooked
on an open fire in a cast iron skillet. "Some say the word slump comes  
from the way the dumplings slowly spread over the fruit as they cook.  
Or maybe not: "The reason for the name is thought to be that the  
preparation has no recognizable form and slumps on the plate," wrote  
Alan Davidson in "The Oxford Companion to Food."

The dish appears to have originated in New England, where early  
colonists (without brick ovens) would prepare it in hanging pots over  
a fire. A slump also goes by the name grunt (because of the sound the  
bubbling fruit makes?). We'll stick to slump, thanks."

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According to my enormous book of desserts slumps are essentially cobblers,
but cooked on the stove top as they say, not in the oven. And it also says
grunts are called that because of the noise it makes. I have this image in
my head of a soft doughy crust lifting at the edges with a big fruity belch.

Angharad