Guest Blogger

One of my closest friends, Dana, sent me an e-mail regarding the recent crumpet/strumpet entry. It was simply too good to allow to linger in my inbox, unread by the world.

Dana was an English major in college. An honors, summa cum laude English major, and is one of the smartest people I know. It is a mystery to me why she has not yet been published.

She's the one who needs to blog.

And now, without further ado- Dana, musing on the differences between crumpets and strumpets.


"Albeit there's a difference between a strumpet and a crumpet, couldn't both
be considered tarts?

And a successful strumpet is often also described as tart, but would a tart crumpet pass muster (mustard)? When is a tart tart a 'good thing', Martha? And isn't it amazing that this cadre of dual meanings around both tea and temptation have remained largely intact amongst the obervant on both sides of the Altlantic, whereas many other carbo-laden foodstuffs that could be consumed at Boston Harbor or with a steaming cuppa-anything on the East End are not named the same thing between here and there? Consider: biscuits, cookies, chips, fries, puddings, and waffles (that's politicians like John Kerry in America). Scones and French things-- petits fours, crepes, eclaires, quiche and croquettes-- have pretty much retained the same meaning, although a low-brow Southern 'croquette' is really called a tuna patty... and what of all the cakes and random things? There's pancakes (that's landing a plane without gear in England), griddlecakes, crumbcakes, bundtcakes, teacakes, hotcakes and cheesecakes (with associated dubious meanings as well), popovers, flapjacks, ladyfingers, finger sandwiches, trifles, fools, pasties (yikes!!), tortes, bombes, cobblers, brownies, bearclaws, butterhorns, shortbreads, sweetbreads, sweetmeats, and mincemeat... to name a few.

And pirogis. ("What's a pirogi?" "It's dough, filled with meat." Dan loves that line.) But it's pretty much a pasty...

I'm gonna go-- I made myself hungry.

...I'll just think, 'jello mold'.
Mold?
Ewwww."