The Language of Food: Sherbet and Sorbet

For those of you that are playing along at home, please speak the following phrase:

"I could really go for some orange Sherbet right now."

If your pronunciation of the word Sherbet included an extra 'R,' you should probably slap yourself. Sherbet is pronounced [SHER-bitt] not [SHER - BERT]. Please stop doing that. SHERBERT is something that Ernie might say to his roommate. (all parents in the audience just got that one).

So what's the difference between Sherbet and Sorbet. My initial reaction to that question is "your location." High end restaurants sometimes serve sorbet in between courses as a palette cleanser. Sorbet is considered upscale, but we think of Sherbet as being a type of ice cream that comes in orange, green, yellow, and red ... perhaps served by a man in a paper hat.

I think this is mostly true. If you research the definitions of both Sherbet and Sorbet, you see that they are basically the same thing: a frozen mixture of fruit juice and water.

According to epicurious.com, Sherbet can often contain milk, eggs, and other sweeteners. But Sorbet is just plain fruit juice and water. From what I know, some of the best Sorbet does not even contain added water; it's just pure frozen juice.

So in the end, it may be just a matter of semantics. Sherbet ... Sorbet ... basically the same thing. But please leave out that extra 'R.'