Sherbert to Me

What's up with sorbet/sherbet/sherbert? Prior to today they were the same in my mind. Now they are as different as scrod, walleye, and whitefish.

JT's decrepit pocket dictionary differenciates between sorbet, sherbet, and sherbert by claiming that sorbet is an ice, sherbet is a diluted fruit drink, and sherbert is a frozen fruit juice that contains either milk, egg whites, or gelatin. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English is less picky, seeming to deride the etymologically-inclined sherbet "purists." The Guide reveals the interesting tidbit that Australians use sherbert as a word for beer. India's "National Newspaper," The Hindu, asserts that sorbet is a fruit puree or juice mixed with fine powdered sugar, while sherbet is a combination of milk, sugar, and fruit flavor. They discount sherbert entirely. Some know-it-all, blogging at Krunk4Ever, cites Webster's to demote sherbert to an alternative pronunciation and resorts to Wikipedia to solve the seemingly insoluble sorbet/sherbet/sherbert ingredients debacle.

Leave the other blogosphere pundits and their hearsay-dependent references to their own just deserts. Let's go straight to THE primary source.

The United States Food and Drug Administration: Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Food and Drugs, Volume 2, Subchapter B--Food for Human Consumption, Part 135--Frozen Desserts, Subpart B--Requirements for Specific Standardized Frozen Desserts, Section 135.140--Sherbet.

Please crystallize the content therein and come to your own conclusion. But first, let me draw your attention to parts a, d, f, and g.

The web community concurs--there is a baseline compositional definition of sherbet. But it is not the paltry minimum commonly summarized as "milkfat content between one and two percent and a minimum density of six pounds per gallon." No!--America's sherbets are held to the highest and most exacting culinary and metric standards!

Sherbet is not merely "mixed with fine powdered sugar." The President of the United States mandates that "Sherbet is sweetened with nutritive carbohydrate sweeteners and is characterized by the addition of one or more of the characterizing fruit ingredients specified in paragraph (d) of this section or one or more of the nonfruit-characterizing ingredients specified in paragraph (e) of this section."

One also may not willy-nilly classify sherbet as "raspberry" or "rainbow." If one wants a fruit sherbet, "The name of each fruit sherbet is "___ sherbet", the blank being filled in with the common name of the fruit or fruits from which the fruit ingredients used are obtained. When the names of two or more fruits are included, such names shall be arranged in order of predominance, if any, by weight of the respective fruit ingredients used." If one desires to render a non-fruit sherbet, "The name of each nonfruit sherbet is "___ sherbet", the blank being filled in with the common or usual name or names of the characterizing flavor or flavors; for example, "peppermint", except that if the characterizing flavor used is vanilla, the name of the food is "___ sherbet", the blank being filled in as specified by 135.110(e) (2) and (5)(i)."

There are laws governing the universe, and as no one is exempt from gravity, no one may circumvent the statutes of sherbet. Let us elucidate these codes, and discover how they shape our lives.