Sherbet
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Sherbet (British and American English) or Sherbert (Australian English and New Zealand English, also a variant used differently in American English) historically was a cool effervescent or iced fruit drink. The meaning, spelling and pronunciation has fractured between three English-speaking countries. It is usually spelled either sherbet or sherbert. In the US, the most common meaning of sherbert is a frozen dessert sorbet or a special kind of ice cream: see sherbet (U.S.).
Sherbet in the United Kingdom is a kind of fizzy powder made from bicarbonate of soda, tartaric acid, sugar etc and usually cream soda or fruit flavoured. The acid-base reaction occurs upon presence of moisture (juice/saliva). It used to be stirred into various beverages to make effervescing drinks, in a similar way to making lemonade from lemonade powders. Today, people usually buy carbonated drinks rather than making them at home.
Sherbet is now used to mean this powder sold as a sweet. In the United States, it would be somewhat comparable to the powder in Pixy Stix or Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip, though having the fizzy quality of Pop Rocks effervescing candy.
Delivery Methods
Sherbet has a dual role in the modern sweet world, acting in both solo form and as a decorative agent on other sweets. The most common occurrences are detailed below, but this list is not exhaustive. Dimensions of sherbet include granularity, color, zing (acidity) and flavouring (normally a citrus fruit).
Paired with liqourice
It is often sold in a cardboard tube with a straw made from liquorice as a sherbet fountain. You are supposed to be able to suck the powder up the straw into your mouth (where it fizzles and dissolves on your tongue). However, this rarely works so people tend to tip the sherbet into their mouths and eat the liquorice separately.
When paired with liqourice, sherbet typically is left unflavoured in a white form and with a higher reactive agent so that it causes a fizzy foam to develop in the consumers mouth.
Fruit flavoured with lollipop
Sherbet dips are also popular. They consist of a small packet of sherbet, sometimes called a 'Dib Dab' with a lollipop sealed into the bag. Once the lollipop has been licked, it can be dipped into the sherbet and then sucked clean, alternatively it can simply be used to shovel the sherbet into the mouth. Another popular type of sherbet dip is the 'Double Dipper' where the packet is divided into three or four sections; one contains an edible stick which can be licked and then dipped into the other sections, each of which contains a different flavour of sherbet (for example strawberry, orange, cola).
Sherbet straws
Plastic straws filled purely with fruit flavoured sherbet. The most common lengths are 10cm and 50cm. Some of the finest grained and most potent sherbet can be found in sherbet straws (normally in the longer lengths), and so they are considered one of the purest ways of consuming sherbet.
Flying Saucers
Small dimpled discs made from edible colored paper (rice paper), typically filled with white unflavoured sherbet (the same form as in Sherbet Fountains)
Decorator functions
Sherbet is also incorporated into other sweets. For example it is used to fill boiled sweets (e.g. sherbet lemons) or to give gum based sweets an interesting surface texture and zing (cola bottles, fruit strips).
A close relative of Sherbet is also used as a topping on ice-cream/frozen yoghurt. In this form the granules are larger than what would occur in Sherbet in its sweet form.
Slang
Sherbet has been used in parts of both the UK and Australia as slang for an alcoholic drink, especially beer. This use is noted in a slang dictionary as early as 1890, and still appears in list of slang terms written today (especially lists of Australian slang). "We're heading to the pub for a few sherbets." - … pints of beer."
In the UK "Showbiz Sherbet" sometimes refers to cocaine, which is also consumed as a powder.
In the 1990s, "sherbet" or "sherbet dab" began to be used as Cockney rhyming slang for a "taxi cab". Its use in this sense is probably restricted to London. "It's raining, let's get a sherbet" - "… take a taxi."
Also, it can be used to refer to a pubic lice infestation, for example, "I've gone and caught a dose of sherbet dabs, or simply "sherbets" off the last one night stand I had"
Popular culture
In the first Austin Powers movie, the main character hypnotises a guard (played by Christian Slater) and orders him to get an orange sherbert. The word sherbert demonstrably has a comedic effect when pronounced in a south london accent.
External links and references
- [Of the Street Sale of Ginger-Beer, Sherbet, Lemonade,&C.], from London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1, Henry Mayhew, 1851; subsequent pages cover the costs and income of street sherbert sellers.
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