| Ever wonder who the first person was to invent your | | | | world-famous chefs and listed on the menus of |
| favorite food or dessert? At Vermont Shortbread | | | | expensive restaurants and posh patisseries, were likely |
| Company, we ponder such matters all the time... so, | | | | dreamed up by the common folk. Dandelion greens, an |
| we did a little research on shortbread to see what | | | | acquired taste but nevertheless popular in fine |
| age-old secrets the internet might reveal!Shortbread, | | | | restaurants, were first eaten in America during the |
| like many other foods that we now consider delicacies, | | | | Depression when food was sparse and folks had to |
| was believe-it-or-not, once snubbed by royalty | | | | survive on whatever they could find in the field. In |
| because it was made with butter, which was | | | | Mexico, the unforgettable avocado is known as the |
| considered a waste by-product of milk. Can you even | | | | poor man's butter! And if you consider any of the wild |
| imagine a time when butter-rich foods weren't | | | | game delicacies that high-end restaurants serve as |
| considered sheer decadence? We certainly can't!Yes, | | | | specialty items (rabbit, wild boar, venison, quail), you |
| back in the medeival days of knights and noblemen, | | | | might remember the "uncivilized" who first sampled |
| European dairy farmers would sell most of their milk to | | | | such foods - hungry men on the brink of survival who |
| the landlords and turn the surplus into cheese and | | | | had to go out and catch their dinner themselves.So, |
| butter, both of which were valued for their long shelf | | | | after our little foray back in epicurean time, it's clear |
| life, and dismissed as a peasant food by the well-to-do | | | | that shortbread is just one of millions of foods that |
| who had cash to throw around and apparently gallons | | | | sprang from a need and blossomed into something |
| of milk to waste freely.At Christmastime, poor families | | | | amazing thanks to the love, care and creativity of the |
| of the Middle Ages found a brilliant use for the tons of | | | | world's greatest chefs (many of whom will never get |
| "scorned" butter that remained lying around: mix with | | | | the credit they deserve for their amazing culinary |
| sugar, oat or wheat flour and other flavorings to | | | | contributions!). And it's also pretty evident that after |
| create a sweet and rich-tasting cookie that would later | | | | several centuries and only slight modification to the |
| become known as shortbread. Of course, we have no | | | | recipe, shortbread is as close to perfection as a cookie |
| way of knowing who was the original chap to make | | | | can get -- and a tradition that's here to stay.Copyright |
| shortbread... but we do know that once the wealthy | | | | 2006 Vermont Shortbread Company. All rights |
| got a taste for what they were missing, shortbread | | | | reserved.Article provided by Copywriting and |
| and other butter-based cookies became a must-have | | | | Marketing Services.Ann Zuccardy, creative |
| at the Queen Mum's afternoon tea table!Shortbread | | | | entrepreneur, food lover and owner of the Vermont |
| isn't the only recipe that wears the rags-to-riches | | | | Shortbread Company, invites you to sample a taste of |
| badge of culinary honor. The truth is, *most* gourmet | | | | her buttery-rich, authentic Vermont Shortbread. |
| foods and desserts that are prepared by | | | | |