February 20, 2025 • 35 mins
This crumbly, not-too-sweet cookie can take a lot of forms based on just three ingredients: flour, butter, and sugar. Anney and Lauren break into the science and history of shortbread.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm morn vocal Bum and today
we have an episode for you about shortbread.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, yes, indeed, was there any particular reason this was
on your mind? Line?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Uh no, no except for the part where So what
got me thinking about this was that I was on
one of my rabbit holes of topic searches and I
was I don't know what spurred it, but I was like,
what about those cookie tins, you know, like the Danish
(00:44):
butter cookie tins, the blue ones that sewing supplies are
in and sometimes butter cookies. What's up with those? And
then I was like, oh, shortbread? And then shortbread seemed
like a better topic, So that's what I went on.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Okay, okay, those tins are useful for they have an afterlife.
Oh yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, I mean it is
around Gallantine's Day, Valentine's Day. Yeah, short bread could fit
into their Sure, I definitely associate it more with the
(01:17):
holidays like Christmas. They're not super common in my life,
but I'd say Christmas.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, yeah. I don't have a strong tradition of shortbread
for any particular holiday, but I do like them. I
love a shortbread.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I do love a short bread, and I do love
the tin. I think the tin is part of the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, it's like a bonus gift, right, Yeah, Yeah, I
think so.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I think so. Well. You can see our past episodes
on Tea Time. That was a good one. I wrote
down biscuits and it's confusing as we've talked about linguistically. Yeah,
but I do think our episode we did on what
we call American like Southern biscuits. Yeah, have a little
(02:09):
bit of credence here. Yeah. Various cookies that we've done,
which again.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Different term, right, Yeah, so like along the cookie line
of piscotti, maybe animal crackers. Our Cadbury episode overlaps a
tiny bit girl Scout cookies.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Sure yeah, all kinds of places to go if you
want another rabbit hole after this. But I guess that
brings us to our question. Sure, shortbread what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well? Shortbread is a type of cookie made from often
just flour, butter, and sugar that are mixed together to
form a dough that's rolled or pressed flat and then
baked a golden brown to create a rich, crisp, crumbly
They're not too sweet baked good that that just kind
of melts as you eat it. It can come in
(03:06):
different shapes, but generally in small sizes of like just
a couple bites per cookie. Because they are so rich
and crumbly. They can have additional flavorings like vanilla or lemon,
or mixin's like almonds or citrus peel toppings like a
like a dip in chocolate, or a squeege of jam,
maybe just a sprinkle of granulated or powdered sugar. They're
(03:27):
served as a snack or dessert, often with tea or coffee,
and are a popular like treat and or gift around
winter holidays. In some cultures, there's sort of there's sort
of a distilled essence of a cookie, like a like
a real showcase of why just flour and butter and
sugar drive so much human interest. They're they're ephemeral but satisfying,
(03:53):
like like reading the first page of.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
A good book.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
M yeah, yeah, you could do that with short bread.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah exactly, Get some tea, yeah, oh yes, just don't
got a great time, right, just don't.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Get the pages all greasy anyway. Okay, so this is
not an episode about every type of like butter cookie ever,
because there's a lot of those around the world, and
which we're gonna talk about a little bit later on.
But yes, so specifically shortbread, all right, when you're making
(04:33):
anything with such a straightforward list of ingredients, your your
proportions and how you combine them really matter, perhaps obviously,
And there are different schools of shortbread, like how thin
or thick you like it, whether you roll out the
dough or press it into a pan like a cookie crust,
or press it into shapes with a cookie press, how
crispy versus tender should be, should they be a little
(04:55):
bit sandy. On an even more delightfully pandantic level, there's
also what shape they're made in, like finger bars, squares, circles, hoops, wedges.
I don't know, but okay. So in the cookie, each
ingredient plays a role. Flour is your principal building material,
(05:16):
generally white flour, and when you mix flour with butter,
the water in the butter is absorbed by the flour,
which is cool because when the starches and flour are
so moisturized and then you heat them up in the oven,
they'll gelatinize, meaning they'll swell up and form a matrix
with each other. But in the case of short bread,
it's this really soft set matrix because the fats in
(05:38):
the butter are going to coat each particle of flour.
The flower does also provide a little bit of like bready,
nutty flavor, and some recipes will call for like white
whole wheat flour or some oat flour in there to
emphasize that, but mainly the flour is kind of like
the scaffold of the cookie structure. The butter again moisturizes
(05:58):
the dough and tempers the strength of that scaffold, keeping
it flexible, and also provides a very important hit of
protein to the mix, because when proteins and sugars interact
while being heated, the mayard reaction produces these lovely gold
to brown colors and like rich, roasty flavors. The flavor
(06:19):
of the butter itself is also key. Springing for good
quality butter is worth it here because a butter that
was produced from like grass fed cows and cultured during
processing is going to have more buttery flavor molecules in it,
and that'll come through. And then the sugar, usually refined
white sugar, is sweet obviously, but also a texturizer in
(06:41):
the structure of the cookie, because like it starts as
a crystal, right and then in the oven with the
moisture from the butter, some of it dissolves, forming a
thick syrup that will harden again when the cookie cools,
and that plus the undissolved sugars will create a crispness
and or crunch in the final cookie. Plus sea above
(07:01):
rey the myard reaction flavors, and you might also get
a little bit of caramelization in there. Yeah, that's nice.
The texture is also affected by whether you cream like
cold butter and sugar together, creating a bit of fluff
before you add the flour, versus either kneading in cold
butter or or melting the butter and then stirring in
(07:22):
the flour and sugar. You know, Creaming the butter adds
air pockets. That's the fluff that will slow down baking
and prevent over browning and spreading in the oven and
create like a tender kind of crispness. Not creaming the
butter creates a tender kind of crumbliness. It depends on
your school short bread. Yeah, yeah, your very basic like
(07:44):
Scottish short bread recipe. Yes, this is Traditionally a Scottish
product is one part sugar to two parts butter to
three parts flour. Most variations on that are going to
use a greater proportion of sugar for some extra sweetens
in crispness to the cookie. Summers peas call for a
pinch of salt for flavor, a little bit of cornstarch,
(08:06):
maybe different types of sugar, or an addition of oat
or rice flour to help the crumbly melty texture. Yeah.
The traditional Scottish pan is a round wooden pan with
a pattern on the bottom that creates like a mold
for your short bread, and it'll give it a pattern
or or shape on the top. Metal pans will also
give you different results. It'll create a little bit more browning.
(08:30):
I would argue personally for me that including other flavorings
is almost like defeating the purpose of short bread. But
you know, you can flavor them with anything you like, cocoa, espresso, lavender,
lemon zest, rosemary, almond extract. You can add bits of
chocolate or candied citrus peel, or toffee or chopped nuts.
(08:53):
You can dip them in chocolate. You can coat them
with a layer of caramel. You can use them as
sandwich cookies for like jam or natilla or whatever. Shortbread
can also be incorporated into other confections. There's a specific
iteration called Millionaire's short bread that is a layer of
short bread and then chewy caramel and then melted chocolate
in almost equal proportion each layer. And sometimes the chocolate
(09:17):
layer is thinner, but you know, it's your mileage may vary.
Those are served in bars or squares. Super good, so good.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Tho.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I it's you might not like caramels, so I'm not
sure how you feel, but you know, like like twigs
consists of a bar of short bread topped with caramel
and then en robed in chocolates, so similar, similar concept.
Do you like twigs?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
No, they're fine, They're fine.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I would apologize to me, you're alone.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I know people love them. I know they're a very
beloved candy bar.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It's okay, more for me, Yeah, you're fine. Tins of
shortbread are a popular gift around the winter holidays around
parts of the UK and the United States. I think
here it's considered a little bit old fashioned. I'm not
not here about elsewhere. Y'all right, in I understand it
(10:18):
is still a hogben anything. Scottish New Year's with the
tradition of first footing, which is the first guest after
midnight bringing a traditional treat. Often it's shortbread.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yes, we talked about that in our New Year's Traditions
episode where we were looking at traditions around the world.
I don't remember if we mentioned shortbread specifically, but this
whole uh the first person who comes into your door
thing has stuck with me since.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
There's some superstitions around that as well. Yeah, I don't
do I haven't changed at all, just just have it
in mind. Yeah, yes, yes, Well what about the nutrition treats?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Are nice? Treats are so nice?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Have some they are savor recommends. Have some treats. We
do have a number for you.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
This one was difficult on numbers, so one number. The
brand Walkers alone does over one hundred and sixty pounds
sterling in sales of short bread every year. Wow. Yeah, yeah,
(11:38):
it's a lot of short bread.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It sounds about right. Sounds about right to me. Well,
we've got quite a history to unpack here.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Oh we do, and we are going to get into
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay, So, yes,
A lot of the history of shortbread has to do
with the history of Scotland. This is one if we
were a different show, we could go into a lot
of this more in depth, because Scotland is interesting culinarily
for a lot of reasons, but for this conversation, because
(12:25):
it didn't have as much Roman and Greek influence as
England did, though later French influence did find its way
in on a larger scale. And more on that later, Okay.
According to some sources, short bread took off around the
twelfth century in the British Isles, perhaps specifically at first
(12:46):
in Scotland, as a byproduct of a type of a
certain type of bread making. It was called biscuit bread.
Leftover dough was dried out over low heat in ovens.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah. Yeah, so like you know, you take your bread
dough and then you make a biscuit, a biscuit in
this context meaning a thin, flat baked good, maybe sweetened.
It's thought that over time, maybe the ingredient's got some upgrades,
you know, more sugar and more butter.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Others suggest that shortbread is a descendant of hardtack, which
is like a dense cracker made of only a few ingredients.
Early recipes might have called for oats, and later, after
people could afford it, they added butter, sugar, and yeast.
We've talked about hardtack before.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, yeast at the time, though, was probably in the
form of barm, being the foam that develops on beer
as you're brewing it. I like a good barm throwback. Yeah,
It's always.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Confusing when people say yeast and I'm like, way, what
exactly are we talking here?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, when it refers to anything before basically the nineteen hundreds,
maybe the eighteen hundreds ish, you're like, we oh, it's
probably barm, Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I definitely was like, hopefully Lauren will clear this up
for me, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't yeast, is
what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, yeah, I was not a yeast packet. I mean,
you know, maybe a little bit of dough from a
previous recipe, from a previous batch, or maybe yeah, something
from your miss All.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Right, Well, I know Lauren said we aren't going to
do other shortbreads from around the world.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, just not all of them all for the whole episode.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, we would never get done and we would all
be trapped in some kind of twilight zone. This did
come up in a couple of my research papers I read, though,
so I'll put it in here. There were other similar
products happening in the Middle East and later in Spain
when it was ruled by Muslims in the eighth century.
Through the Spanish it spread to South America, where it
(14:52):
evolved even further. In Spain, specifically, over centuries, Muslim women
kept the tradition of shortbread, going to the creation of
pulva rones. These were all pretty similar to the Scottish
shortbread and often came in two varieties, either in disc
form or as a bracelet decorated with almonds or pistachios.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I read about at least fourteen different varieties of shortbread
type cookies from outside the UK. It's the kind of
thing that makes sense, you know, you have these ingredients,
you find ways to put them together. They're delicious.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah. I think it's just when you're trying to get
to the bottom of where something came from, it can
be really hard to say. Oh, of course, was there
influence from this thing over here or did it come
from displace over here or was it or did it
independently pop up? Yeah, and there's without being a very
(15:53):
different show than we are. We cannot say today, no,
that we can, not, that we cannot. However, shortbread started,
it became an expensive product that most could not afford
due to the price of the ingredients. So because of
that it became sort of a celebratory food for a
(16:16):
lot of people. And as an aside, I read that
it is still traditional to offer shortbread to the first
people to set foot in your home after New Year's
in Scotland, and at one time it was traditional to
break shortbread over the head of a new bride while
(16:36):
she stood in the threshold of her home. Okay, please
write in, Please write in. A lot of these traditions
are so fun, but I'm always kind of wary of
like veracity.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, did anyone ever actually do that? Or yeah, or
within any kind of living memory or yeah exactly, so
please write in. Yeah, but this brings us to our
French influence that I mentioned earlier. Mary, Queen of Scots
or her team of French chefs often get credited with
(17:07):
refining the shortbread recipe to our more modern understanding of
it in the mid fifteen hundreds, especially when it comes
to the addition of butter. Allegedly, Mary really liked a thin,
buttery version of short bread seasoned with caraway seeds, called
petticoat tails. Yeah, that's because of their shape. A wedge
(17:28):
shaped shortbread cut from a circle like a slice of pizza,
you know, is sometimes still called petticoat tails. And I
think the name comes from the fact that, you know,
like at the time, petticoats were you know, like big circles,
probably constructed from wedges of fabric. Probably there's another theory
that the term is a corruption of a French term
(17:50):
for cookies. But who knows.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Mystery s history and all this to say, it's a
really popular story. I think people love glomming on.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
To whatever royalty.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, but the evidence for all of this is sparse
at best. Yeah, just to say, all right, in the
early days, shortbread was sometimes called short cake, but according
to some sources at least, the name was changed to
shortbread in the eighteenth century when Parliament placed taxes on
luxury goods like sweets. So yeh, way to get around.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, they were like it's not cake, it's bread, So
no taxes for me, great, right.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yes, I couldn't find I wanted more. I wanted to
dive deep into these bland tax documents, and I couldn't
find them.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So I've got a little bit more for you in
a minute.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Okay, excellent, I'm so excited. Shakespeare's sixteen o two play,
The Merry Wives of Windsor mentions short cake.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Or rather it mentions someone by the name of Alice Shortcake,
which is probably something of a riddle of a reference
to some contempt person of note for the audience to
puzzle out. But at any rate, it means that people
were familiar with shortcake as a food stuff in like
the late fifteen hundreds, when scholars think that Mary Wives
(19:11):
was written.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yes, And I also just wanted to point out here,
I told Lauren before we started recording, this is about
the point in the outline where I had a panic
attacke oh no, because I was looking up this fact
and I was reminded strawberry shortcake is a thing, and
I was like, oh no, have I been researching the
(19:35):
wrong no, the wrong item this whole time. I haven't.
I hadn't been, but important note In American English, there
is a difference between shortcake and shortbread.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I believe that that's true in British English as well.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I think it's true now, but I think at one time.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I think historically the two were con yes, but nowadays
a short cake is is a risen or like a
cakey or cake, and short bread is like a thinner
like cracker biscuit situation.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well again, listeners right in, But yes, did I read
all about how the strawberry shortcake came to be? Yes,
because I'm suddenly like, oh yeah, I must like oh no.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, yeah, important? Okay, kind of speaking of etymology note here, So, okay,
the inclusion of like cake or bread in the name
of this product is pretty self explanatory. But what about
the short short in this context means easily crumbled and
specifically refers in baking to adding a fat to make
(20:51):
the product a crumbly or flaky, as in like a
short crust pastry. Yeah. This is also where we get
the word shortening, as in like vegetable shortening like crisco
for example, and short in this sense of the word
was being used in cookbooks by the early fourteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yes, and speaking of although we don't necessarily know that
this was in a cookbook, it's kind of a mysterious
entry in the outline, to be honest. The first known
written recipe for shortbread specifically appeared in seventeen thirty six,
submitted written by a Scottish woman named Missus McClintock.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That is what I read as well. There's another recipe
from the seventeen hundreds by one Missus Frasier that called
for a sweet eeast dough with orange and citron peel
blanched almonds and caraway seeds. Caraway was very popular. And
then one from the eighteen fifties called for flour, sugar, butter, eggs,
and ammonium carbonate, which yes is smelling salts which were
(21:59):
used as a chemical leer at the time. And you
can see our Muffin episode for more on that one.
But in general, like, yeah, like, through the eighteen hundreds,
it seems like things being called shortbread did call for
leavening agents of some kind, which is interesting because these
days there are no leavening agents were very very very
(22:19):
little in shortbread, right.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, yeah. Some sources suggest that shortbread spread from Scotland
to the rest of the UK, and then from there
the American South with Scottish immigrants, and I found a
lot of interesting articles comparing American South shortbread to Scottish shortbread.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Oh fun. Well, the brand Walkers got its start in
Scotland in eighteen ninety eight, and then the American brand
Lorna Doone was launched by what would become Nabisco in
nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Sometime in the nineteen fifties Ish it became popular to
top shortbread with caramel and or chocolate.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Twigs debuted the UK in nineteen sixty seven, so it
must have been a thing by then.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I didn't know Twigs was a UK creation. Yeah, yeah,
that makes sense, it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah yeah, I don't think it got over here until
several years later, sometime in the seventies, I think. And okay,
here's your fun times Annie. So all right. In the
UK there are fairly Labrinthian tax laws concerning shortbread and
other baked goods.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
So okay.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
There's a tax system for consumer goods called the value
added tax or VAT, and many basic goods like most
foods and drinks, carry zero added tax under the system,
but often luxury goods like confections or alcohol carry either
a standard twenty percent tax or some other amount. So,
(24:01):
for example, chocolate coated shortbread is a confection and counts
as standard rated that twenty percent, but millionaire short bread
or chocolate sandwich cookies are baked goods and they count
as zero rated.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Thank you, Laura, Yeah, yeah you did. Yes, I do
love this kind of stuff. As much as it gives
me a headache when we're researching it, I do love it.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I also do want to put in here that my
favorite typo of the episode came up when I was
writing out this note because I was writing out the
phrase chocolate sandwich cookies, and I was thinking about the
English term biscuits, and so I was like, chocolate sandwich biscuits,
but what I wrote was chocolate sandwich bookies, and I
(24:57):
just really like, I just thought that that's a great phrase.
Chocolate sandwich bookies.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, that sounds like the the mafia version of Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You can't pay up. I'm
covering you.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Chocolate chocolate sandwich and watch out. Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, so then watch out.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I also read that there's a law that in the
UK that to be labeled shortbread, the fat in the
cookie has to be fifty one percent. Butter I didn't
track down I couldn't track down the law. But I
did read that fact on maidhow dot com, which is
generally respectable, and I was really happy. It's it had
been a minute since they had come up in my searches,
(25:49):
and I was really happy to be back on the
maidhow dot com website, which is possibly even nerdier than
me telling you guys about my favorite typo of the episode.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Oh I love it. That's I'm glad you found yourself
back there.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Me too, thank you. Speaking of lovely, the TV show
ted Lasso premiered in August of twenty twenty, right when
we needed him most. And I bring that fact up
because in ted Lasso, the titular ted Lasso brings these
short bread cookies for his boss, which wind up endearing
him very much to her.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So yeah, it's a whole thing. It's a whole ritual,
which I read for a lot of people, it is.
It's sort of you involve it in tea time, or
maybe you involve it short bread at your holiday celebrations,
like for a lot of people, as kind of that tradition.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
And those can be very helpful during dark times.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Mm hmmmmmm. Again, listeners, please write in oh yeah, and
let us know. Oh if you have any like favorite tins,
tins that the shortbread came in, please send us pictures
of those, because I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah yeah, oh heck if I can, if I can
find it relatively easily, i'll and if I remember to
do it, I'll post a picture of my button collection,
which is which is in a tin.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah. Pedro Pascal is a really good yeah snl skit
where he's playing like the Hispanic mother and you have
to see it. But yeah, just throws out the cookies
and butts like sewing.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Supply, yeah, directly in.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah yeah yeah yeah oh so yeah, let us know
what you keep in there. Yeah, if it's nothing scandalous.
But I think that's what you have to say about
Shortbread for.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Now, I think it is. We do already have some
listener mail for you, though, when we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
one more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, yes, thank you, And
we're back with listeners. N yeah, I do like a
short red dipped in. I like it dipped in a
hot beverage.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Oh yeah, nice, nice. I don't really like dipping, but alongside,
definitely alongside. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I think it's the Tim Tams. There's a long time
listeners and viewers. Back when we did video stuff, we
did the Tim Tam slam turned me on to it.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I don't know, delicious and beautiful, yeah, yes, Today we
just have one listmail complete with the pet text.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Always important. Remember it's time. I haven't done my taxes yet,
but it is. It is taxing season. Yea savors calling
to collect. So yes our grope. I love pesto and
I love seeing all the different variations that people try.
I tend to switch between the American and British pronunciations
(29:37):
of basil myself. I think I have only had the
original Genovese pesto once. The number of ways you can
use pesto is also amazing. A little spread on a
good piece of bread with a bit of perstuto and cheese,
Yes please. Another way we use it is a salmon
(29:59):
pasta dish, grill or boil a piece of salmon. Keep
it simple. Oil salt, pepper, then boil up some small shells,
half up some cherry or grape tomatoes. When ready, break
the salmon up into pieces, and then toss the shells pestos.
Salmon and grape tomatoes together to mix up. Pesto is
(30:19):
so lovely and versatile. Mandarin oranges are also wonderful. I
think the canned ones are just a throwback to growing up,
so I enjoy buying them occasionally. I think mandarins do
you work well in a fruit salad to provide contrast.
Buying cuties or halos to have as a snack is
a nice little treat. Is also great in terms of
(30:41):
savory salads. I use it in a chicken salad like this.
Take two boneless, skinless chicken breasts and add five spice,
grill or pan cook until done. Dice and add to
a mix of finely shredded napa cabbage, finely shredded red cabbage,
shredded carrots, sesame, sa fried slash, crispy chow may noodles
(31:02):
like LAUDCHOI dice cream onions, mandarin oranges and then mix
in the dressing. The dressing is two tablespoons light soy sauce,
three tablespoons rice vinegar, one tablespoon toasted sesame oil, two
tablespoons grape seed oil or canola or any other neutral
flavored oil, one teaspoon sugar, one and a half teaspoon
(31:23):
fresh ginger grated, are very finely chopped. One garlic clove minced,
are grated, half teaspoon black pepper. I think the salad
gives a nice blend of flavors and the mandarins give
a nice little pop of flavor. Ooh h, all.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Right, let's hold comments until the end. Are it continues?
Panier is also great, something I always look for when
we go to an Indian restaurant. Now I really want
to look into trying to make it myself. Finally, with
the dogs. Attaching a recent photo of Lady Bell with
a name. We were going back and forth between lady
and Bell, and when talking with the couple we were
getting her from, she said she was giving us the
(32:02):
paperwork for AKC registration if we wanted, and her mom's
official name is Princess Charlotte of the Hollow, so we
said it had to be Lady Bell at that point. Yeah, yeah, legitimate. Also, yes,
attached is a photograph of a black Lab with a
tennis ball. And I don't know if I've ever mentioned
(32:25):
this on the show before, but I grew up with
a black Lab. Like when I was a very tiny baby,
my parents had a black lab. Like when they brought
me home, the black lab was like, why did you
add a puppy to this household? I was not consulted.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Right, I'm no longer the baby I read exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But his name was TC, which stood for Total Chaos,
which was indicative of how he acted as a puppy.
But he was a very very very good dog. I mean,
Labrador retrievers generally are, but this, but Lady Bell appears
to be a very very very good dog. She's sitting
(33:04):
in the snow. She is clearly having a very good
time in the snow because her muzzle is covered in it.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yes. Yes, And Princess Charlotte of the Hollow, Oh right,
that's a like book I would read.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Right, I feel like I have read that book, Like
I know. The more I'm looking at this photo, I'm like,
it might be a chocolate lab. I hope I'm not
misidentifying your Labrador retriever right now, let me know it's
hard to tell from photographs sometimes, but oh my goodness, Pesto.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yes, yes, yes, I mentioned when we did the Pesto episode.
I already had some. I haven't used it yet.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Because I got caught up in Laura and I were
talking about this. There's a lot going on in February,
and I had to make you know, food for the
big game. Just a couple of dinners I've had with friends.
But I'm I'm excited. I think it'll make me feel
(34:09):
Atlanta's having a lot of as usual winter whiplash.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yeah, it was really warm for a while and now
it's really cold, and well it's cooler, and pasto is
something I feel. It was very springtime, so I think
it might boost yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah yeah that's in That salmon pasta
sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It does.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
That chicken salad sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I still might be mad about the mandarins in it,
but but I but I believe you that you like it,
And thank you so much for sharing a recipe.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yes, we love getting recipes. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah it
sounds good to me.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah. No, that dressing sounds great. I'm definitely like this
is going in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Mmmmm. Well, thank you so much to Arc for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
Our email is Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Blue Sky or Instagram at saver pod and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots of more good things are
(35:31):
coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm Annie Reese and I'm morn vocal Bum and today
we have an episode for you about shortbread.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yes, yes, indeed, was there any particular reason this was
on your mind? Line?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Uh no, no except for the part where So what
got me thinking about this was that I was on
one of my rabbit holes of topic searches and I
was I don't know what spurred it, but I was like,
what about those cookie tins, you know, like the Danish
(00:44):
butter cookie tins, the blue ones that sewing supplies are
in and sometimes butter cookies. What's up with those? And
then I was like, oh, shortbread? And then shortbread seemed
like a better topic, So that's what I went on.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Okay, okay, those tins are useful for they have an afterlife.
Oh yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, I mean it is
around Gallantine's Day, Valentine's Day. Yeah, short bread could fit
into their Sure, I definitely associate it more with the
(01:17):
holidays like Christmas. They're not super common in my life,
but I'd say Christmas.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, yeah. I don't have a strong tradition of shortbread
for any particular holiday, but I do like them. I
love a shortbread.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I do love a short bread, and I do love
the tin. I think the tin is part of the
whole thing.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Yeah, it's like a bonus gift, right, Yeah, Yeah, I
think so.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
I think so. Well. You can see our past episodes
on Tea Time. That was a good one. I wrote
down biscuits and it's confusing as we've talked about linguistically. Yeah,
but I do think our episode we did on what
we call American like Southern biscuits. Yeah, have a little
(02:09):
bit of credence here. Yeah. Various cookies that we've done,
which again.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Different term, right, Yeah, so like along the cookie line
of piscotti, maybe animal crackers. Our Cadbury episode overlaps a
tiny bit girl Scout cookies.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Sure yeah, all kinds of places to go if you
want another rabbit hole after this. But I guess that
brings us to our question. Sure, shortbread what is it?
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well? Shortbread is a type of cookie made from often
just flour, butter, and sugar that are mixed together to
form a dough that's rolled or pressed flat and then
baked a golden brown to create a rich, crisp, crumbly
They're not too sweet baked good that that just kind
of melts as you eat it. It can come in
(03:06):
different shapes, but generally in small sizes of like just
a couple bites per cookie. Because they are so rich
and crumbly. They can have additional flavorings like vanilla or lemon,
or mixin's like almonds or citrus peel toppings like a
like a dip in chocolate, or a squeege of jam,
maybe just a sprinkle of granulated or powdered sugar. They're
(03:27):
served as a snack or dessert, often with tea or coffee,
and are a popular like treat and or gift around
winter holidays. In some cultures, there's sort of there's sort
of a distilled essence of a cookie, like a like
a real showcase of why just flour and butter and
sugar drive so much human interest. They're they're ephemeral but satisfying,
(03:53):
like like reading the first page of.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
A good book.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
M yeah, yeah, you could do that with short bread.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah exactly, Get some tea, yeah, oh yes, just don't
got a great time, right, just don't.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Get the pages all greasy anyway. Okay, so this is
not an episode about every type of like butter cookie ever,
because there's a lot of those around the world, and
which we're gonna talk about a little bit later on.
But yes, so specifically shortbread, all right, when you're making
(04:33):
anything with such a straightforward list of ingredients, your your
proportions and how you combine them really matter, perhaps obviously,
And there are different schools of shortbread, like how thin
or thick you like it, whether you roll out the
dough or press it into a pan like a cookie crust,
or press it into shapes with a cookie press, how
crispy versus tender should be, should they be a little
(04:55):
bit sandy. On an even more delightfully pandantic level, there's
also what shape they're made in, like finger bars, squares, circles, hoops, wedges.
I don't know, but okay. So in the cookie, each
ingredient plays a role. Flour is your principal building material,
(05:16):
generally white flour, and when you mix flour with butter,
the water in the butter is absorbed by the flour,
which is cool because when the starches and flour are
so moisturized and then you heat them up in the oven,
they'll gelatinize, meaning they'll swell up and form a matrix
with each other. But in the case of short bread,
it's this really soft set matrix because the fats in
(05:38):
the butter are going to coat each particle of flour.
The flower does also provide a little bit of like bready,
nutty flavor, and some recipes will call for like white
whole wheat flour or some oat flour in there to
emphasize that, but mainly the flour is kind of like
the scaffold of the cookie structure. The butter again moisturizes
(05:58):
the dough and tempers the strength of that scaffold, keeping
it flexible, and also provides a very important hit of
protein to the mix, because when proteins and sugars interact
while being heated, the mayard reaction produces these lovely gold
to brown colors and like rich, roasty flavors. The flavor
(06:19):
of the butter itself is also key. Springing for good
quality butter is worth it here because a butter that
was produced from like grass fed cows and cultured during
processing is going to have more buttery flavor molecules in it,
and that'll come through. And then the sugar, usually refined
white sugar, is sweet obviously, but also a texturizer in
(06:41):
the structure of the cookie, because like it starts as
a crystal, right and then in the oven with the
moisture from the butter, some of it dissolves, forming a
thick syrup that will harden again when the cookie cools,
and that plus the undissolved sugars will create a crispness
and or crunch in the final cookie. Plus sea above
(07:01):
rey the myard reaction flavors, and you might also get
a little bit of caramelization in there. Yeah, that's nice.
The texture is also affected by whether you cream like
cold butter and sugar together, creating a bit of fluff
before you add the flour, versus either kneading in cold
butter or or melting the butter and then stirring in
(07:22):
the flour and sugar. You know, Creaming the butter adds
air pockets. That's the fluff that will slow down baking
and prevent over browning and spreading in the oven and
create like a tender kind of crispness. Not creaming the
butter creates a tender kind of crumbliness. It depends on
your school short bread. Yeah, yeah, your very basic like
(07:44):
Scottish short bread recipe. Yes, this is Traditionally a Scottish
product is one part sugar to two parts butter to
three parts flour. Most variations on that are going to
use a greater proportion of sugar for some extra sweetens
in crispness to the cookie. Summers peas call for a
pinch of salt for flavor, a little bit of cornstarch,
(08:06):
maybe different types of sugar, or an addition of oat
or rice flour to help the crumbly melty texture. Yeah.
The traditional Scottish pan is a round wooden pan with
a pattern on the bottom that creates like a mold
for your short bread, and it'll give it a pattern
or or shape on the top. Metal pans will also
give you different results. It'll create a little bit more browning.
(08:30):
I would argue personally for me that including other flavorings
is almost like defeating the purpose of short bread. But
you know, you can flavor them with anything you like, cocoa, espresso, lavender,
lemon zest, rosemary, almond extract. You can add bits of
chocolate or candied citrus peel, or toffee or chopped nuts.
(08:53):
You can dip them in chocolate. You can coat them
with a layer of caramel. You can use them as
sandwich cookies for like jam or natilla or whatever. Shortbread
can also be incorporated into other confections. There's a specific
iteration called Millionaire's short bread that is a layer of
short bread and then chewy caramel and then melted chocolate
in almost equal proportion each layer. And sometimes the chocolate
(09:17):
layer is thinner, but you know, it's your mileage may vary.
Those are served in bars or squares. Super good, so good.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Tho.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I it's you might not like caramels, so I'm not
sure how you feel, but you know, like like twigs
consists of a bar of short bread topped with caramel
and then en robed in chocolates, so similar, similar concept.
Do you like twigs?
Speaker 1 (09:44):
No, they're fine, They're fine.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I would apologize to me, you're alone.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I know people love them. I know they're a very
beloved candy bar.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
It's okay, more for me, Yeah, you're fine. Tins of
shortbread are a popular gift around the winter holidays around
parts of the UK and the United States. I think
here it's considered a little bit old fashioned. I'm not
not here about elsewhere. Y'all right, in I understand it
(10:18):
is still a hogben anything. Scottish New Year's with the
tradition of first footing, which is the first guest after
midnight bringing a traditional treat. Often it's shortbread.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yes, we talked about that in our New Year's Traditions
episode where we were looking at traditions around the world.
I don't remember if we mentioned shortbread specifically, but this
whole uh the first person who comes into your door
thing has stuck with me since.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Oh yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
There's some superstitions around that as well. Yeah, I don't
do I haven't changed at all, just just have it
in mind. Yeah, yes, yes, Well what about the nutrition treats?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Are nice? Treats are so nice?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Have some they are savor recommends. Have some treats. We
do have a number for you.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
This one was difficult on numbers, so one number. The
brand Walkers alone does over one hundred and sixty pounds
sterling in sales of short bread every year. Wow. Yeah, yeah,
(11:38):
it's a lot of short bread.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It sounds about right. Sounds about right to me. Well,
we've got quite a history to unpack here.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Oh we do, and we are going to get into
that as soon as we get back from a quick
break forward from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay, So, yes,
A lot of the history of shortbread has to do
with the history of Scotland. This is one if we
were a different show, we could go into a lot
of this more in depth, because Scotland is interesting culinarily
for a lot of reasons, but for this conversation, because
(12:25):
it didn't have as much Roman and Greek influence as
England did, though later French influence did find its way
in on a larger scale. And more on that later, Okay.
According to some sources, short bread took off around the
twelfth century in the British Isles, perhaps specifically at first
(12:46):
in Scotland, as a byproduct of a type of a
certain type of bread making. It was called biscuit bread.
Leftover dough was dried out over low heat in ovens.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah. Yeah, so like you know, you take your bread
dough and then you make a biscuit, a biscuit in
this context meaning a thin, flat baked good, maybe sweetened.
It's thought that over time, maybe the ingredient's got some upgrades,
you know, more sugar and more butter.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Others suggest that shortbread is a descendant of hardtack, which
is like a dense cracker made of only a few ingredients.
Early recipes might have called for oats, and later, after
people could afford it, they added butter, sugar, and yeast.
We've talked about hardtack before.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yeah, yeast at the time, though, was probably in the
form of barm, being the foam that develops on beer
as you're brewing it. I like a good barm throwback. Yeah,
It's always.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Confusing when people say yeast and I'm like, way, what
exactly are we talking here?
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, when it refers to anything before basically the nineteen hundreds,
maybe the eighteen hundreds ish, you're like, we oh, it's
probably barm, Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I definitely was like, hopefully Lauren will clear this up
for me, because I'm pretty sure it wasn't yeast, is
what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, yeah, I was not a yeast packet. I mean,
you know, maybe a little bit of dough from a
previous recipe, from a previous batch, or maybe yeah, something
from your miss All.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Right, Well, I know Lauren said we aren't going to
do other shortbreads from around the world.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, just not all of them all for the whole episode.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, we would never get done and we would all
be trapped in some kind of twilight zone. This did
come up in a couple of my research papers I read, though,
so I'll put it in here. There were other similar
products happening in the Middle East and later in Spain
when it was ruled by Muslims in the eighth century.
Through the Spanish it spread to South America, where it
(14:52):
evolved even further. In Spain, specifically, over centuries, Muslim women
kept the tradition of shortbread, going to the creation of
pulva rones. These were all pretty similar to the Scottish
shortbread and often came in two varieties, either in disc
form or as a bracelet decorated with almonds or pistachios.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
I read about at least fourteen different varieties of shortbread
type cookies from outside the UK. It's the kind of
thing that makes sense, you know, you have these ingredients,
you find ways to put them together. They're delicious.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Yeah. I think it's just when you're trying to get
to the bottom of where something came from, it can
be really hard to say. Oh, of course, was there
influence from this thing over here or did it come
from displace over here or was it or did it
independently pop up? Yeah, and there's without being a very
(15:53):
different show than we are. We cannot say today, no,
that we can, not, that we cannot. However, shortbread started,
it became an expensive product that most could not afford
due to the price of the ingredients. So because of
that it became sort of a celebratory food for a
(16:16):
lot of people. And as an aside, I read that
it is still traditional to offer shortbread to the first
people to set foot in your home after New Year's
in Scotland, and at one time it was traditional to
break shortbread over the head of a new bride while
(16:36):
she stood in the threshold of her home. Okay, please
write in, Please write in. A lot of these traditions
are so fun, but I'm always kind of wary of
like veracity.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yeah, did anyone ever actually do that? Or yeah, or
within any kind of living memory or yeah exactly, so
please write in. Yeah, but this brings us to our
French influence that I mentioned earlier. Mary, Queen of Scots
or her team of French chefs often get credited with
(17:07):
refining the shortbread recipe to our more modern understanding of
it in the mid fifteen hundreds, especially when it comes
to the addition of butter. Allegedly, Mary really liked a thin,
buttery version of short bread seasoned with caraway seeds, called
petticoat tails. Yeah, that's because of their shape. A wedge
(17:28):
shaped shortbread cut from a circle like a slice of pizza,
you know, is sometimes still called petticoat tails. And I
think the name comes from the fact that, you know,
like at the time, petticoats were you know, like big circles,
probably constructed from wedges of fabric. Probably there's another theory
that the term is a corruption of a French term
(17:50):
for cookies. But who knows.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Mystery s history and all this to say, it's a
really popular story. I think people love glomming on.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
To whatever royalty.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Yeah, but the evidence for all of this is sparse
at best. Yeah, just to say, all right, in the
early days, shortbread was sometimes called short cake, but according
to some sources at least, the name was changed to
shortbread in the eighteenth century when Parliament placed taxes on
luxury goods like sweets. So yeh, way to get around.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, they were like it's not cake, it's bread, So
no taxes for me, great, right.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Yes, I couldn't find I wanted more. I wanted to
dive deep into these bland tax documents, and I couldn't
find them.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
So I've got a little bit more for you in
a minute.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Okay, excellent, I'm so excited. Shakespeare's sixteen o two play,
The Merry Wives of Windsor mentions short cake.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Or rather it mentions someone by the name of Alice Shortcake,
which is probably something of a riddle of a reference
to some contempt person of note for the audience to
puzzle out. But at any rate, it means that people
were familiar with shortcake as a food stuff in like
the late fifteen hundreds, when scholars think that Mary Wives
(19:11):
was written.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Yes, And I also just wanted to point out here,
I told Lauren before we started recording, this is about
the point in the outline where I had a panic
attacke oh no, because I was looking up this fact
and I was reminded strawberry shortcake is a thing, and
I was like, oh no, have I been researching the
(19:35):
wrong no, the wrong item this whole time. I haven't.
I hadn't been, but important note In American English, there
is a difference between shortcake and shortbread.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I believe that that's true in British English as well.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I think it's true now, but I think at one time.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
I think historically the two were con yes, but nowadays
a short cake is is a risen or like a
cakey or cake, and short bread is like a thinner
like cracker biscuit situation.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well again, listeners right in, But yes, did I read
all about how the strawberry shortcake came to be? Yes,
because I'm suddenly like, oh yeah, I must like oh no.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, yeah, important? Okay, kind of speaking of etymology note here, So, okay,
the inclusion of like cake or bread in the name
of this product is pretty self explanatory. But what about
the short short in this context means easily crumbled and
specifically refers in baking to adding a fat to make
(20:51):
the product a crumbly or flaky, as in like a
short crust pastry. Yeah. This is also where we get
the word shortening, as in like vegetable shortening like crisco
for example, and short in this sense of the word
was being used in cookbooks by the early fourteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yes, and speaking of although we don't necessarily know that
this was in a cookbook, it's kind of a mysterious
entry in the outline, to be honest. The first known
written recipe for shortbread specifically appeared in seventeen thirty six,
submitted written by a Scottish woman named Missus McClintock.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That is what I read as well. There's another recipe
from the seventeen hundreds by one Missus Frasier that called
for a sweet eeast dough with orange and citron peel
blanched almonds and caraway seeds. Caraway was very popular. And
then one from the eighteen fifties called for flour, sugar, butter, eggs,
and ammonium carbonate, which yes is smelling salts which were
(21:59):
used as a chemical leer at the time. And you
can see our Muffin episode for more on that one.
But in general, like, yeah, like, through the eighteen hundreds,
it seems like things being called shortbread did call for
leavening agents of some kind, which is interesting because these
days there are no leavening agents were very very very
(22:19):
little in shortbread, right.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Yeah, yeah. Some sources suggest that shortbread spread from Scotland
to the rest of the UK, and then from there
the American South with Scottish immigrants, and I found a
lot of interesting articles comparing American South shortbread to Scottish shortbread.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Oh fun. Well, the brand Walkers got its start in
Scotland in eighteen ninety eight, and then the American brand
Lorna Doone was launched by what would become Nabisco in
nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Sometime in the nineteen fifties Ish it became popular to
top shortbread with caramel and or chocolate.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Twigs debuted the UK in nineteen sixty seven, so it
must have been a thing by then.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I didn't know Twigs was a UK creation. Yeah, yeah,
that makes sense, it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah yeah, I don't think it got over here until
several years later, sometime in the seventies, I think. And okay,
here's your fun times Annie. So all right. In the
UK there are fairly Labrinthian tax laws concerning shortbread and
other baked goods.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
So okay.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
There's a tax system for consumer goods called the value
added tax or VAT, and many basic goods like most
foods and drinks, carry zero added tax under the system,
but often luxury goods like confections or alcohol carry either
a standard twenty percent tax or some other amount. So,
(24:01):
for example, chocolate coated shortbread is a confection and counts
as standard rated that twenty percent, but millionaire short bread
or chocolate sandwich cookies are baked goods and they count
as zero rated.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Thank you, Laura, Yeah, yeah you did. Yes, I do
love this kind of stuff. As much as it gives
me a headache when we're researching it, I do love it.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I also do want to put in here that my
favorite typo of the episode came up when I was
writing out this note because I was writing out the
phrase chocolate sandwich cookies, and I was thinking about the
English term biscuits, and so I was like, chocolate sandwich biscuits,
but what I wrote was chocolate sandwich bookies, and I
(24:57):
just really like, I just thought that that's a great phrase.
Chocolate sandwich bookies.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, that sounds like the the mafia version of Willy
Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You can't pay up. I'm
covering you.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Chocolate chocolate sandwich and watch out. Wow.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, so then watch out.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
I also read that there's a law that in the
UK that to be labeled shortbread, the fat in the
cookie has to be fifty one percent. Butter I didn't
track down I couldn't track down the law. But I
did read that fact on maidhow dot com, which is
generally respectable, and I was really happy. It's it had
been a minute since they had come up in my searches,
(25:49):
and I was really happy to be back on the
maidhow dot com website, which is possibly even nerdier than
me telling you guys about my favorite typo of the episode.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Oh I love it. That's I'm glad you found yourself
back there.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Me too, thank you. Speaking of lovely, the TV show
ted Lasso premiered in August of twenty twenty, right when
we needed him most. And I bring that fact up
because in ted Lasso, the titular ted Lasso brings these
short bread cookies for his boss, which wind up endearing
him very much to her.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
So yeah, it's a whole thing. It's a whole ritual,
which I read for a lot of people, it is.
It's sort of you involve it in tea time, or
maybe you involve it short bread at your holiday celebrations,
like for a lot of people, as kind of that tradition.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
And those can be very helpful during dark times.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Mm hmmmmmm. Again, listeners, please write in oh yeah, and
let us know. Oh if you have any like favorite tins,
tins that the shortbread came in, please send us pictures
of those, because I love that.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah yeah, oh heck if I can, if I can
find it relatively easily, i'll and if I remember to
do it, I'll post a picture of my button collection,
which is which is in a tin.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah. Pedro Pascal is a really good yeah snl skit
where he's playing like the Hispanic mother and you have
to see it. But yeah, just throws out the cookies
and butts like sewing.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Supply, yeah, directly in.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Yeah yeah yeah yeah oh so yeah, let us know
what you keep in there. Yeah, if it's nothing scandalous.
But I think that's what you have to say about
Shortbread for.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Now, I think it is. We do already have some
listener mail for you, though, when we are going to
get into that as soon as we get back from
one more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsor, yes, thank you, And
we're back with listeners. N yeah, I do like a
short red dipped in. I like it dipped in a
hot beverage.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Oh yeah, nice, nice. I don't really like dipping, but alongside,
definitely alongside. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
I think it's the Tim Tams. There's a long time
listeners and viewers. Back when we did video stuff, we
did the Tim Tam slam turned me on to it.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
I don't know, delicious and beautiful, yeah, yes, Today we
just have one listmail complete with the pet text.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Always important. Remember it's time. I haven't done my taxes yet,
but it is. It is taxing season. Yea savors calling
to collect. So yes our grope. I love pesto and
I love seeing all the different variations that people try.
I tend to switch between the American and British pronunciations
(29:37):
of basil myself. I think I have only had the
original Genovese pesto once. The number of ways you can
use pesto is also amazing. A little spread on a
good piece of bread with a bit of perstuto and cheese,
Yes please. Another way we use it is a salmon
(29:59):
pasta dish, grill or boil a piece of salmon. Keep
it simple. Oil salt, pepper, then boil up some small shells,
half up some cherry or grape tomatoes. When ready, break
the salmon up into pieces, and then toss the shells pestos.
Salmon and grape tomatoes together to mix up. Pesto is
(30:19):
so lovely and versatile. Mandarin oranges are also wonderful. I
think the canned ones are just a throwback to growing up,
so I enjoy buying them occasionally. I think mandarins do
you work well in a fruit salad to provide contrast.
Buying cuties or halos to have as a snack is
a nice little treat. Is also great in terms of
(30:41):
savory salads. I use it in a chicken salad like this.
Take two boneless, skinless chicken breasts and add five spice,
grill or pan cook until done. Dice and add to
a mix of finely shredded napa cabbage, finely shredded red cabbage,
shredded carrots, sesame, sa fried slash, crispy chow may noodles
(31:02):
like LAUDCHOI dice cream onions, mandarin oranges and then mix
in the dressing. The dressing is two tablespoons light soy sauce,
three tablespoons rice vinegar, one tablespoon toasted sesame oil, two
tablespoons grape seed oil or canola or any other neutral
flavored oil, one teaspoon sugar, one and a half teaspoon
(31:23):
fresh ginger grated, are very finely chopped. One garlic clove minced,
are grated, half teaspoon black pepper. I think the salad
gives a nice blend of flavors and the mandarins give
a nice little pop of flavor. Ooh h, all.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Right, let's hold comments until the end. Are it continues?
Panier is also great, something I always look for when
we go to an Indian restaurant. Now I really want
to look into trying to make it myself. Finally, with
the dogs. Attaching a recent photo of Lady Bell with
a name. We were going back and forth between lady
and Bell, and when talking with the couple we were
getting her from, she said she was giving us the
(32:02):
paperwork for AKC registration if we wanted, and her mom's
official name is Princess Charlotte of the Hollow, so we
said it had to be Lady Bell at that point. Yeah, yeah, legitimate. Also, yes,
attached is a photograph of a black Lab with a
tennis ball. And I don't know if I've ever mentioned
(32:25):
this on the show before, but I grew up with
a black Lab. Like when I was a very tiny baby,
my parents had a black lab. Like when they brought
me home, the black lab was like, why did you
add a puppy to this household? I was not consulted.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Right, I'm no longer the baby I read exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
But his name was TC, which stood for Total Chaos,
which was indicative of how he acted as a puppy.
But he was a very very very good dog. I mean,
Labrador retrievers generally are, but this, but Lady Bell appears
to be a very very very good dog. She's sitting
(33:04):
in the snow. She is clearly having a very good
time in the snow because her muzzle is covered in it.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yes. Yes, And Princess Charlotte of the Hollow, Oh right,
that's a like book I would read.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Right, I feel like I have read that book, Like
I know. The more I'm looking at this photo, I'm like,
it might be a chocolate lab. I hope I'm not
misidentifying your Labrador retriever right now, let me know it's
hard to tell from photographs sometimes, but oh my goodness, Pesto.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yes, yes, yes, I mentioned when we did the Pesto episode.
I already had some. I haven't used it yet.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Oh okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Because I got caught up in Laura and I were
talking about this. There's a lot going on in February,
and I had to make you know, food for the
big game. Just a couple of dinners I've had with friends.
But I'm I'm excited. I think it'll make me feel
(34:09):
Atlanta's having a lot of as usual winter whiplash.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yeah, it was really warm for a while and now
it's really cold, and well it's cooler, and pasto is
something I feel. It was very springtime, so I think
it might boost yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah yeah that's in That salmon pasta
sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It does.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
That chicken salad sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
I still might be mad about the mandarins in it,
but but I but I believe you that you like it,
And thank you so much for sharing a recipe.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yes, we love getting recipes. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah it
sounds good to me.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Yeah. No, that dressing sounds great. I'm definitely like this
is going in the back of my mind.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Mmmmm. Well, thank you so much to Arc for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
Our email is Hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Blue Sky or Instagram at saver pod and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots of more good things are
(35:31):
coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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