What's for "Desert"?

I found out today that Marie Antoinette never said, "Let them eat cake." She was only ten years old when Rousseau coined the phrase in his Confessions, although what he actually wrote was, "Let them eat brioche." Brioche is a French pastry that's more of a bread than a cake, but does it matter? Point is, if someone thinks they're doing me a disservice by insisting I eat cake or brioche, who am I to argue? "No, no, whatever you do, please don't force me to eat those vile petits four!" I'd have to do my best to mimic the throes of agony while begging them not to give me a fifth serving along with a glass of cold milk.

As you might have surmised by now, I like dessert. A lot. Probably most people do, but not all, which is fine as it means more for the rest of us.

Although I was twice school spelling champ when I was 11 and 12, I never could get "dessert" right. It wasn't atypical to see this sort of sentence in my essays: "I would like to live in the Mojave Dessert." In that instance, I would get marked off for spelling as well as for wanting to live in the Mojave. I had even more trouble with "desert," as in, "What's for desert?" I don't think people have as much trouble distinguishing the two words spoken as they do written. "Desert" was very likely coined before "dessert," but given that, whose idea was it to add an "s" to a word that already served a perfectly fine purpose? Did the first bakers taste their experimental concoctions and go, "Needs more
water"? We'll never know, I guess.

My favorite desserts are pies, particularly French silk, chocolate cream, and Key lime. I grew up in South Florida and never tasted Key lime until I was much older. A deprived childhood.

I've never eaten a banana split and never will. When my sister was very small, our family pulled up to an ice cream shop and bought a banana split for them to share with Terry and a vanilla cone just for me. For some reason, we were eating them in the car out in the parking lot. The three of them were in the front seat, and after they'd given Terry a few bites of a dessert she'd never eaten before, she promptly threw up all over the dashboard. That was the end of banana splits as far as I was concerned. Bananas belong in cereal, anyway. (Also in soup, but that was my mother's predilection and one I outgrew once I left home.)

My sister also instigated my lifelong boycott of mangos. Mangoes were plentiful in Miami, and when my parents gave her one for the first time, she became deathly ill. (Apparently they hadn't learned anything from the banana split.) I hadn't tried mangoes before then, and I thought it was a good idea to go on not trying them, just in case this reaction was genetic. Many years later -- last year, in fact -- Terry told me that in fact she hadn't tasted the mango at all. She'd touched it and developed a serious allergic reaction. So I could have spent all these years eating mangoes (while someone else held them for me). But I'm so used to not eating them that I think I'll just leave things as they are.

It's amazing how many desserts I've never tried. I had my first cherry cobbler and my first cheesecake only this year. I haven't eaten blueberries or blackberries. No squash. I don't even know from pomegranates. The only fruit pies I've had are apple and maybe peach. I've gone through 61 Thanksgivings without trying cranberry sauce. I've tasted pumpkin pie and don't like it, which always surprises me because it's so pretty to look at, and Yankee Candle makes a great spiced pumpkin scent. (Between my distaste for pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce, Thanksgiving meals have been pretty vanilla.) I like cookies, but don't even come near me with a Fig Newton. I tried a kiwi once, and I liked it a lot, but kiwis are something I just never think of when I'm shopping. Let's see, what else? I've never had an avocado, so I avoided guacamole for years, also because it looks like something that shouldn't even be a food. When I finally tried a friend's recipe, I was amazed that I'd deprived myself all those years.

I haven't included candy in this rundown because I consider dessert something that comes after a meal and not something you eat when you're not supposed to because it's almost mealtime. I doubt many dinners end with the words, "OK, now who wants a fresh Snickers?" It's the same with anything made by a certain pastry company I won't name here because I don't know a whole lot about libel laws, although I think I can name their products. "Is everyone ready for some Ding Dongs?" Frankly, I haven't eaten a Ding Dong or a Ho-Ho since speaking with a friend who once worked in the booming Twinkie industry. She asked me why I thought those little pastries stay so fresh so long. Turns out, she explained, they're baked in their own chemicals. This has been shot down as an urban myth, and I no longer believe it (hear that, libel attorneys? I NO LONGER BELIEVE IT), but I have to wonder why my friend developed a facial tic whenever I mentioned little chocolate donuts. (Little chocolate donuts were a staple of my long car trips, along with Mountain Dews. This might explain why I always showed up an hour or two ahead of schedule.)

So really, I'm not the most qualified person to be writing about desserts. Don't most people, though, latch onto a favorite food without seeing the need to try something else? Is it just me? I have my regular ice cream standbys and would never give a thought to rocky road or cookies and cream. You'll only see certain cakes in my fridge and never a fruitcake or a coconut cake or a fat rascal (British -- you don't even want to know). I think it's significant that fruitcakes are primarily gifts and that I've never actually seen anyone eat them.

If you have a dessert you think I might like, keep it, as I likely won't. But the jury is still out on mint chocolate chip ice cream and double fudge cake, so feel free to send me a sample so that I can be certain.

(That was a joke, by the way. But if you're considering Hostess products, feel free, since I NO LONGER BELIEVE THEY'RE BAKED IN THEIR OWN CHEMICALS! REALLY!)