[Sca-cooks] Medieval German "whoopie pies"???

[Johnna Holloway]

I agree that it's a long way from a filled wafer or oblaten  to a cake
made with leftover cake batter and filled with crisco. I wonder what  
their historian
read that convinced her that this was the source for all things whoopie!
I think Maine
was winning the PR war and the Pennsylvania folks were scrambling for  
any source
or association they could find.

I wonder what food historian William Woys Weaver has to say on the  
subject.
And for that see:

"An internationally known culinary historian and author of 12 food  
histories, William Woys Weaver, says neither Pennsylvania nor Maine  
can claim to be the first to make whoopie pies.
Weaver, a lifelong Pennsylvania resident, pushed aside any possible  
Keystone State prejudices to reveal his research on the subject.

He said the cake part of the pie may have been derived from a cake  
made famous at a Berwick, Maine, train station. However, he said, "It  
was altered and more or less reinvented by the Berwick Cake Company in  
Massachusetts." Going back further, he said, "The cake-with-filling  
idea begins with a Wiener Krapfen, a handmade Viennese Fastnacht in  
existence many centuries before Berwick, Maine, even existed."

http://articles.mcall.com/2011-04-19/entertainment/mc-whoopie-pie-sidebar-history-20110419_1_whoopie-pies-amish-community-cake

Johnnae

On Sep 2, 2011, at 1:12 PM, wheezul at canby.com wrote:

> She might be extrapolating from 'krapfen' recipes.  However, there  
> are the
> 'gefullte oblaten' recipes that are wafers filled with marzipan, or  
> figs
> and raisin, or cherry sauce and then fried.  It's *sorta* like a  
> filled
> cookie, especially if you are using a spiced wafer.
>
> You can read about my analysis of all the recipes I could find here:
>
> http://jillwheezul.livejournal.com/224339.html
>
> If I could find anything like cakes with cream in them in a medieval
> cookbook I would be all cookie monster on that! Gefullte oblaten are
> wonderfully delish but are a long way from a whoopie pie tho.  I too  
> have
> a horrible sweet tooth :)
>
> Katherine