A sherbet, basically and historically, is a cold, sweetened, non-alcoholic drink, usually based on a fruit juice. The earliest recorded word for it seems to be sharâb, the classical Arab term for a sweetened drink. However, in the late Middle Ages this word developed its current Arabic sense (a sense prevailing in both Turkish and Syrian Arabic) of an alcoholic drink. A different word was therefore needed for a non-alcoholic sweetened drink, and this emerged as sharbât. The Turkish term s(h)erbet comes from this newer word.
The old word sharâb, before it changed its meaning and apparently at a very early date, passed into Spanish and Italian and thence became current in most of the European languages; obvious examples are the English word syrup and the French sirop.
The later Arabic word sharbât also entered European languages. In the late 16th century it appeared in Italian as the name of a beverage drunk in Turkey. Then the beverage itself entered Italian cuisine, under the name sorbetto. It took this form because the Italians assimilated it to their verb sorbire, meaning to sip. The Italian sorbetto gave rise to the French sorbet, the Spanish sorbete, etc. All these words begin with ‘s’ not with ‘sh’. English seems to be the only language which took the word sherbet directly from the Turkish, complete with its ‘h’.
Recipes for the traditional Middle Eastern sherbets have not changed much over the centuries. There are two main categories of ingredient: a fruit (or vegetable) juice; and a sweetening agent (originally honey, although even in medieval times the then more expensive sugar occurs in some recipes). An optional third category would be spices. The sherbets were cooled by ice or, more romantically, snow.
In Turkey and the Middle East generally, sweetness is auspicious, so sherbet is served on auspicious occasions: at meals during Ramadan, in place of water; at engagement parties; when someone enters a religious order. And, because of its auspicious nature, it is a standard offering to guests. It seems to have been the custom in Turkey to serve sherbets as refreshments between the courses of banquets or important dinners; but sherbets did not owe their existence to any such requirement—they were a part of daily life there, and in Egypt too.
The sherbet is served in coloured glass cups, generally called ‘kullehs’, containing about three quarters of a pint; some of which [the more common kind] are ornamented with gilt flowers, etc. The sherbet-cups are placed on a round tray, and covered with a round piece of embroidered silk, or cloth of gold. On the right arm of the person who presents the sherbet is hung a large oblong napkin with a wide embroidered border of gold and coloured silks at each end. This is ostensibly offered for the purpose of wiping the lips after drinking the sherbet, but it is really not so much for use as for display.
Commenting on this description, which is taken from the 1860 edition of Lane's Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, Claudia Roden (1985) says that the same traditions have continued to be observed, as she remembers from her own childhood. These traditions, of course, only applied in well-to-do households. She does not neglect to explain how the ordinary people would obtain their sherbets from street vendors.
As the vendor went by, people would rush down from their flats to drink several glasses … The vendors carried a selection of sherbets in gigantic glass flasks, two at a time, held together by wide straps and balanced on their shoulders. The flasks glowed with brilliantly seductive colours: soft, pale, sugary-pink for rose water; pale green for violet juice; warm, rich, dark tamarind; and the purple-black of mulberry juice. As they went through the street, the vendors chanted their traditional, irresistible calls of ‘Arasous!’ and ‘Tamarhindi!’, accompanied by the tinkling of little bells and the clanking of the metal cups which they carried with them.
According to the dictionary compiled by Foretière in the late 17th century, a sorbet in France at that time was also a drink, of sugar and lemon pulp. Diderot's great encyclopaedia of the 1750s suggests that it remained so during the 18th century. During the 19th century, however, a sorbet could be either a drink or a sort of ice more suitable for drinking than eating, and in the latter case had an alcoholic content. The distinction between an iced drink and a drinkable ice is a fine one, but it clearly existed for the French, and it was the drinkable ice which developed into the eatable sorbet (see water ices) now found in French restaurants.
For English and American sorbets of the 19th century, the book on Victorian Ices and Ice Cream (1976) by Barbara Wheaton is a fine source. Part of this reproduces recipes from a famous English book, Mrs Marshall's The Book of Ices (1885). Wheaton explains how a protracted Victorian dinner—she is speaking of the upper classes— would be punctuated halfway through by a refreshing sorbet, usually a lemon water ice with spirits added and fruit for garnish.
The word sherbet did not pass into general use in America until the middle of the 19th century. Later on in that century, it and sorbet were used as synonyms. And a charming conceit had been devised whereby the cup in which the sherbet/ sorbet was served was itself composed of ice. When Charles Dickens was in New York in 1867, he was honoured by a banquet at Delmonico's, at which ice cups (made by freezing water between two cup-shaped moulds) were used to serve a lemon and orange sorbet strengthened by American sparkling wine, kirsch, and prunelle. Mrs Marshall approved strongly.
In the 20th century the custom of serving a sorbet as a refresher in the middle of a large meal, normally a luxury meal in a restaurant, has been revived. And a sorbet, or a selection of sorbets of different flavours, is a standard low-calorie item on the dessert menu. Such sorbets are eaten, not drunk.
But in England there was a surprising development. It is not unusual to find that something appreciated by the upper classes either travels downwards, socially, if its nature is such that poorer people can afford it; or, in the contrary case, is imitated by some cheaper product. In England, the sorbet had the latter fate. A sherbet powder was produced which could either be made into a fizzy drink, or sucked into the mouth, where it would likewise fizz. The powder was composed of bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid (see cream of tartar), plus sugar, and was cheap. Anyone could afford it.
This product had already appeared in the 19th century; an edition of Law's Grocer's Manual of about 1895 describes in detail how it can be made, and compares it to another powdered product, now less prominent but still surviving, lemon kali. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery (also about 1895) gave a more refined recipe for use in the home.
But it was in the 20th century that this sort of sherbet really spread its wings. Three favourite kinds were: a tube containing the powder and furnished with a liquorice stick or ‘straw’, which was used to convey the powder to the mouth and was itself eaten in the process; a ‘sherbet lemon’— a lemon sweet for sucking, with sherbet powder inside; and a ‘sherbet bomb’, shaped like a UFO, covered with rice paper, and again containing the sherbet powder.
As for developments in the USA in the 20th century, it must be said that no two Americans will give exactly the same answer to the question: what is a sherbet? Differing laws in the various states have to be taken into account, as well as different local traditions and differing individual opinions. California is the state where the largest quantities of sherbet are made, and Californians will typically state that a sherbet certainly does not contain milk or milk products. In New York state, on the other hand, it seems to be a legal requirement that it should. An outsider can only rejoice in the thought that this Old World confection has proved to be so polymorphous in the New World.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
Davidson, Alan (1993), ‘Sherbets’, in Wilson (1993).
Mason, Laura (1998), Sugar Plums and Sherbet, Totnes: Prospect Books.
Roden, Claudia (1985), A New Book of Middle Eastern Food, London: Viking.
