Pies, puddings, biscuits and tarts

[David]

Eloise wrote:

Puddings:
> 
> I suspect the reason for the original confusion is that 
> traditionally, British "puddings" have been of the heavy, stodgy 
> variety, cooked,often suet-based recipes,like Christmas pudding or 
> roly poly, or sponges, for instance treacle pudding (which as I 
> expect you all know now is made with Golden Syrup - just to muddy 
the 
> waters even further, we don't call Golden Syrup treacle, but we do 
> call the sponge pudding and the tart made with it "treacle-
"pudding 
> and tart. Often these are made in pudding basins.

And, furthermore, puddings are not necessarily eaten for pudding.  
For example, steak and kidney pudding is a main course, quite 
different from steak and kidney pie.

At home, we called the course after the main course, when we got 
it, 'afters' (so, to us kids, the main course was 'befores'), unless 
it was fruit, in which case we just called it 'fruit', seen as a 
second-best option, though not, no doubt, by my mother.  Dessert 
sounded pretentious, pudding regional.  There is also 'sweet', as 
in, e.g., the sweet trolley, which we never used.

> On reflection, I think the site you refer to was viewing "pudding" 
in 
> a functional way. The sweet thing you eat at the end of a meal 
*is* a 
> pudding. So a waffle isn't a pudding, per se, but you could eat 
one 
> for pudding.

Yes, I think so.  Summarising, we have two meanings of the 
word 'pudding': the sweet course at the end of the meal, and the 
suet-based recipes referred to above.
 
> This cookie/biscuit/cracker thing is one of the things I find most 
> confusing. I know what you mean by biscuit but the British biscuit 
> doesn't seem to me to be an exact equivalent of the cookie.

Are crackers baked twice?  This is in my mind the essential 
definition of a biscuit.

> At least.......Well, when we use "cookie" we mean a specific type 
of 
> biscuit (the ones that are rather like home-baked ones, often 
moist).
> 
> Over here we have a *vast* range of biscuits. It's one of our 
> weaknesses. I go to a huge supermarket where both sides of a long 
> aisle are filled with shelves of nothing but (?)hundreds of 
varieties 
> of biscuits and crackers (is it any wonder we're becoming obese?) 

> Many of our biscuits have a texture somewhat like the outside of 
an 
> Oreo. Some are smoother (Rich Tea). Then there are wafer biscuits 
and 
> digestive biscuits (which may be eaten either as sweet biscuits or 
> with cheese, like a cracker)and all manner of chocolate-coated 
ones.

...and Iced Sports and Garibaldis and Ginger Thins and Yorkshire 
Parkins and Bournmouths and Jaffa Cakes and Nice and Bath Olivers 
(these test the biscuit/cracker boundary) and Angel Trumpets and 
Custard Creams and Hob Nobs and Oatcakes and Scottish Shortbread and 
those lovely Swedish Annas Pepparkakor and...

That said, I think the biscuit-eater's biscuit is the Rich Tea: 
plain, ideal for dunking (a habit that I suspect would truly revolt 
American readers), sweet but simple.

> Muffin is another one. When we moved to Tokyo, I leaped on a 
display 
> of "English muffins", wondering that such short-lived bakery items 
> could get as far as Japan, only then to be mystified that they 
> weren't made in England at all. So why were they 
labelled, "English"?

That's IMO a common phenomenon.  In Vienna, they make - or made - 
sweet pastry.  In time, the Danes discovered it and copied the 
recipe, no doubt adding twists of their own, and called it 
Wienerbrod (Vienna bread).  Eating it is one of the chief delights 
of visiting Denmark, and in due course it came to Britain (modified 
again) as Danish Pastry, or just 'a Danish' for short.  But the 
Germans and Austrians disvovered it too, calling it, IIRC, 
Kopenhagenergebaeck - 'Copenhagen bake'.  And so it goes round, a 
sort of gustatory Chinese Whispers.  But none of the actual food 
travels - only the recipes, heavily adapted to local ingredients and 
tastes.

No doubt the Japanese will make muffins their own, and eventually a 
faintly seaweed-flavoured lukewarm bun made from rice flour will be 
all the rage in New York, called Tokyo Engrish, or some such.

> But the difference is quite clear. Our muffins are toasted and 
eaten 
> for breakfast or tea, where such an antiquated habit still exists, 
> whereas your muffins definitely count as cakes and we wouldn't 
> normally eat them for breakfast.

But, I believe, Americans eat filling sweet food for breakfast that 
we wouldn't, except, perhaps, on holiday (er (or uh), that's 
vacation to you, um, y'all)?  Buttermilk pancakes and maple syrup 
springs to mind.
 
> Here's another one. Brits as well. What's the difference between a 
> tart and a pie?

A tart has no lid, only a base, and the filling is sweet.  If the 
filling is savoury, or there is a lid (base or not), it's probably a 
pie, though some things with savoury filling and a base may be 
quiche or flan.  To confuse things, flans can be sweet as well.  
Clear?  Good.

David