Like marriages, there a lot of different ways to make it work. Traditionally, strawberry shortcake is a simple dessert, rich, and filled with history.
The luscious red strawberries we love today started in the wild like young people looking for partners. Their natural habitat is temperate regions around the world. Food historians note that thousands of years ago indigenous people in North and South America consumed and cultivated the berries. Many believed that strawberries were a symbol of love, fertility, and rebirth.
In Biblical times, strawberries also meant love, sweetness, beauty, and perfection. Nowletsbehonest.com maintained that “strawberries represent the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom that is here with us even now.”
You can find strawberries in ancient Roman literature where they were seen as a symbol for Venus, the goddess of love. They also believed that strawberries cured inflammations, fevers, throat infections, kidney stones, gout and other diseases.
Shakespeare used strawberries as symbols of fidelity. In Othello he wrote:
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this:
Have you sometimes seen a handkerchief
Spotted with strawberries in your wife’s hand?
Charles V of France had 1,200 strawberry plants in his royal garden during the 1500s. At the same time, monks included them in their famous illustrated manuscripts – along with Italian, Flemish, German, and British artists. Even the infamous Henry VIII served them at lavish banquets.
Is that why some strawberries are painted with chocolate?
It was all about cultivation and cross-breeding with the many different types of strawberries. For example, in the early 1700s North American and Chilean strawberries were cross-bred. The North American strawberries were known for a delicate flavor; the Chilean was celebrated for its amazing taste and large size.
Molly Watson in The Spruce Eats, reported that “there are more than 600 varieties of strawberries, stemming from five or six original wild species that are a member of the rose family.” They range in shape, color, size, and taste. You can even get white, orange-red, pink, and yellow strawberries.
Which brings us to the marriage made in heaven – strawberries and shortcake.
No one knows exactly who and when strawberry shortcake was invented. Wikipedia claimed that originally “shortcake indicated something crumbly or crispy.” The recipe first appeared in a 1588 cookbook, The Good Huswife’s Handmaid for Cookerie in Her Kitchen. Shortcakes arrived in the U.S. much later. Washington Irving described them in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1821), as on a table full of desserts, including “sweet cakes and shortcakes.”
Combining cake and strawberries wasn’t a new idea in America. Miss Leslie’s Ladies Receipt Book: A Useful Companion for Large or Small Families (1847) called it “strawberry cake”, served sandwich-style with mashed strawberries between two pieces of cake, topped with icing and fresh strawberries.
The English version was more like a scone or biscuit.
Today you find both versions . . . and more. Unleavened crumbly, scone-like short cake was replaced by sponge, pound, or angel cake, made with baking powder and soda. Sweetened cream was replaced with icing or whipped cream. You can also find strawberry shortcake with ingredients like peach, blueberry, chocolate and coconut.
There are also Asian, Israeli, and European versions.
Then there’s Strawberry Shortcake the cartoon.
Strawberry Shortcake the cartoon began life on a greeting card in the 1970s. She quickly moved into toys, dolls, clothing, television, film, home videos, and videogames. After all, who could resist a little girl in a big hat with friends like Lemon Meringue, Blueberry Muffin, and Plum Puddin’?
They lived in the Berry Universe in places like Big Apple City and Strawberryland.
Whether you’re in love with the cartoon (and her friends) or the dessert, they’re both delicious.
Enjoy!
Courtesy of Vemorexxial 1, Wikimedia Commons
What’s not to love about strawberry shortcake? I had no idea, however, that the strawberry itself had such an illustrious history. From Charles V to Shakespeare, and down through the years to us, who can now enjoy strawberries in every season! Is that civilized, or what? Thanks for another wonderful article and enjoy your well earned vacation!