A HARTE APPETITE: CONFUSING CULINARY CONCOCTIONS

"What's in a name?" Shakespeare asked. Apparently quite a bit, especially if the name doesn't fit.

That's called a misnomer and, depending on your point of view, you see and hear them everyday. For instance, to members of a symphony orchestra the term "rap music" might be a misnomer. To one political party the other party's use of the term "tax reform" might be a misnomer. To people in the newspaper business the term "television news" might be a misnomer.

The culinary world is no exception. From personal experience I've concluded that the term "diet delight" on a menu or as the title of a recipe is invariably a misnomer. And when it comes to food, there are lots of them that are inaccurately labeled. For example, there's wild rice, which isn't really rice at all, but a form of grass. And peanuts, which aren't really nuts but legumes. And Chinese duck sauce and oyster sauce, neither of which contains what sounds like it ought to be the principal ingredient. And then there are Jerusalem artichokes, which aren't from the Holy Land and are really members of the sunflower family, plus plum pudding, which contains nary a plum.

But perhaps the greatest culinary misnaming of all is Boston cream pie, a concoction which anybody can tell just by looking is not a pie but a cake. In fact, it's two layers of sponge cake filled with pastry cream and topped with a chocolate glaze. How it got its name is a matter of some debate and a clear-cut answer is not easy to find. You'd think the award winning cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum would know, but neither her "Cake Bible" nor her "Pie and Pastry Bible," both of which I've read religiously, are much help. Boston cream pie doesn't appear in either one of them.

The origin of Boston cream pie is easier to determine than the origin of its name. The first recorded mention of it, according to the "Dictionary of American Food and Drink," was in the New York Herald in 1855, and most observers say Boston's Parker House Hotel, where they still bake nearly 200 of them each week, invented the version we know today, though there is disagreement over which hotel employee was responsible. "The Joy of Cooking" credits a German baker named Ward who was also the originator of the Parker House roll. The New York Times says the mastermind behind the dessert was a French chef named Sanzian who simply took a two-layer custard filled sponge cake, already known as Boston pie, and topped it with chocolate frosting.

Some evidence suggests a concoction known as Boston cream pie predated the one at the Parker House. According to the late James Beard it was a two-layer custard filled butter cake merely sprinkled with powdered sugar. The Parker House chocolate-iced version was simply a variation. Christopher Kimball, writing in "The Dessert Bible," lends credence to Beard's account by noting that the venerable "Fannie Farmer Cookbook" includes a recipe for something called a Boston favorite cake and treats the Boston cream pie as a modification.

But why were any of these cakes called pie? No one seems to know for sure, but the best guess is that they were so labeled because they were baked in pie tins, which were more common in 19th-century America than cake pans. Indeed, not a few old American recipes for pie are really for cakes baked in a pie tin. For example, one of my favorite imposters, Nantucket Cranberry Pie, is made by spreading cake batter over sweetened cranberries. The dividing line between cake and pie was not so clear cut in early America.

After all these years it's unlikely that Boston cream pie will be re-christened Boston cream cake, certainly not in Massachusetts where a few years ago it was anointed the state dessert, beating out the Toll House cookie and Indian pudding during a spirited political battle. One thing's for sure, however; when applied to Boston cream pie, the word "delicious" is no misnomer.

Listen to A Harte Appetite Friday mornings and Saturday afternoons on KRCU-FM 90.9. Write to A Harte Appetite, c/o Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or send e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.