Culinary mysteries

[shewhomust]

Whatever happened to lemon drizzle cake?

I remember when it was a new thing, a plain, slightly lemon-zested pound cake tangy with lemon syrup, and a slight crunch on top where the syrup had soaked in, leaving some sugar behind. Now, I order lemon drizzle cake and they bring me random cakes with lemon icing and barely a hint of lemon in the cake itself. There may even be butter cream (feh!). I'd be happy if my cake were drenched, rather than drizzled, with lemon, but other than that, please stick to the specification.

Whatever happened to parsley?

When did flat parsley become the default? Parsley should be curly! It has more flavour, it lasts better, it doesn't go limp, and there's no risk of making a mistake and buying coriander (which I dislike) instead. But it has become a rarity in the shops, even in my beloved greengrocer's (they say: "We can order some for you"). I have tried and failed to grow it, but maybe it's time to try again.

Comments

[sovay]

I remember when it was a new thing, a plain, slightly lemon-zested pound cake tangy with lemon syrup, and a slight crunch on top where the syrup had soaked in, leaving some sugar behind.

I wonder if this is my family's lemon cake, which we have made at least since my grandmother's time. The cake itself is basically a pound cake with lemon extract, baked in a ring pan; the glaze is lemon juice and sugar brushed across the top of the cake right when it comes hot out of the oven, so that it soaks in and forms a thick, crunchy, lemony layer. It is not iced. We've always just called it a lemon cake.

When did flat parsley become the default?

I had no idea it had!

[larryhammer]

Flat parsley is too easy to confuse with cilantro.

[shewhomust]

That sounds like the same cake, give or take: I think of it as baked in a loaf tin, and ideally that would be the zest of the lemon in the cake. But I'm absolutely with you on the topping. It was not a thing when I was a child, and then suddenly it was, but I couldn't say when.

And I'm glad that your parsley continues to curl!

[shewhomust]

Y'know, I wondered whether I ought to gloss 'coriander' as 'cilantro', but didn't bother. Sorry.

[sovay]

But I'm absolutely with you on the topping.

It's the essential part!

It was not a thing when I was a child, and then suddenly it was, but I couldn't say when.

I'll see if my mother remembers when her mother started making it (or if it is in fact older, although it doesn't sound like it to me). There are foods and traditions on her side of the family that go back generations and then there are foods and traditions that as far as I can tell my grandparents just adopted because they liked them. We have no other explanation for the Christmas pudding and the eggnog.

[edit] Our lemon cake didn't start with my grandmother! My mother brought the recipe home from New York in the 1970's! So who knows where it originated?

[edit edit] My mother says our cake is a variant on the East 62nd Street Lemon Cake invented by Maida Heatter's daughter; she adapted from the version in Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts (1974), but the recipe was originally published in 1970 in the New York Times. It did include lemon zest in the cake.

[edit edit edit] Paper trail at the NYT, including the original recipe.

[larryhammer]

*light bulb goes off*

I'm used to using coriander only for the seeds, and I rarely remember they're from the same plant as the cilantro that's ubiquitous in Mexican cooking. I've no idea if that's personal idiosyncrasy or US usage.

[sartorias]

Oh, I remember those delicious cakes. But somehow they've gone out of fashion. I don't think I've seen one for decades.

[shewhomust]

Ah, that hadn't occurred to me. (For what it's worth, I like the seeds, just not the green herb - and I associate both with middle eastern cuisine. Didn't know it was big in Mexico.)

[shewhomust]

Around here, the cakes seem to have gone out of fashion, but the name lingers on.

[larryhammer]

If cilantro isn’t available as a condiment, generally as part of the salsa bar, you need to find a better Mexican restaurant.

The leaves are also used in Chinese and Vietnamese cooking.

[shewhomust]

Thanks for taking the trouble to track that down - and my thanks to your mother, too! I'm pretty sure that I first met it a bit later than that, and as a loaf rather than a ring, but the lemon syrup treatment is the distinctive feature, and that certainly matches!

[hairyears]

Flat parsley was always the default in the 1970s ragtown of my childhood; both shop-bought, and cultivated in our garden.

I encountered curly parsely as an adult, and still regard it as exotic.

[shewhomust]

OK, I wasn't expecting that. Where was this?

[hairyears]

Leicester.

[shewhomust]

Was it already a curry centre by then? My assumptions were certainly formed before the 1970s, by which time I was in Durham and - not at the cutting edge, let's say.