The FastDay Forum

Type 'diner lingo' into Wikipedia. Burn the British means a toasted English muffin

[Debs]

I have really enjoyed this thread; I think the Scots have won on a points decision!!!
Spotted Dick was a standard in our house growing up, but I don't eat it now due to the meat suet (we are mostly vegetarian these days).
I had the great fortune to go to a Pudding Club meeting earlier in the year - heaven in a bowl!http://www.puddingclub.com if anyone wants some pudding porn! One of the puddings served was Eton Mess, a gorgeous 'mess' of meringue pieces, cream and fresh berries, heaven!
Apple dappies is another nice one, really apple chelsea buns with lemon syrup. Of course there is Brown Betty, Old Hooky (christmas phd with dark English ale), Poor knights of windsor and my favourite, Sussex Pond Pudding (well I am a Sussex gal, born and bred)
For some bizarre reason I never devined, we had lots of puds growing up, but only ever had Birds Trifle from the packet, never a real one. Needless to say, it was years before i could bring myself to eat a real, home made one!!!

You can get vegetarian suet-at least in the UK

[carorees]

Of course we have pound cake! In fact the majority of cake recipes are based on pound cake but are given fancy names! Any recipe where the weights of sugar, flour and butter are the same will probably also have the same weight of eggs and is, therefore, a pound cake.

As our chickens don't lay regular sized eggs, I always weigh the eggs and then use that weight of sugar, butter and flour for my cakes.

I never heard of pound cake until I went stateside - yes we have Madeira cake, Victoria sponge, rock cakes, black bun, Dundee cake etc. Another one that I didn't know was chiffon pie and something called Lady Baltimore. It was also the first time I came across bagels and sourdough bread, but it was nearly 30 years ago. We had a local icecream parlour called Carvels that would make birthday cakes to any design, designed out of different flavours and colours of ice cream, a huge hit with our kids!
Pretzels was another wonder, especially buying them still hot on a cold winter morning from a street vendor in Manhattan, I remember my shock as I was expecting something sweet.
Pumpkin pie and pecan pie were other new delights.

Hey, @Carorees, though I've been eating pound cake all my life, I never thought about why it was called pound cake. Does it have something to do with using a pound of everything to make it?? All of our recipes use volume measurements, so I guess I wouldn't even know that the weights were equal.

Mmm, hot soft pretzels Why am I reading this on a fast day?

And as for bagels, I was shocked to learn that some of my kids' college friends had never had bagels. This was in the Midwest not too long ago. Proving that we have a very big, diverse country here, and some foods I would have sworn were universal are actually still regional. The immigrant kids in my daughter's class of 10 year olds were also confused by the bagels served for breakfast one day. They had just assumed they were doughnuts!

[carorees]

Hey, @Carorees, though I've been eating pound cake all my life, I never thought about why it was called pound cake. Does it have something to do with using a pound of everything to make it?? All of our recipes use volume measurements, so I guess I wouldn't even know that the weights were equal.

Yes, that's exactly right. Nowadays we don't make a cake that big though!