Jelly roll
From Free net encyclopedia
| Revision as of 18:04, 6 March 2006 Nareek (Talk | contribs) rv vandalism ← Previous diff |
Current revision Nareek (Talk | contribs) rv vandalism |
Current revision
A jelly roll (known outside of the United States as a Swiss roll) is a cylindrical cake containing jelly or jam. It is made by baking a long flat thin sponge cake, coating the surface with jam and sometimes cream, and rolling it up. It is usually served in circular slices. A Swiss roll made with a chocolate-flavoured sponge and containing a chocolate fondant is sometimes called a chocolate log.
The term jelly roll is also sexual slang, used to indicate variously a lover, intercourse, or the sexual parts. According to the book "The Story of English, "On the street, jelly roll had many associated meanings, from the respectable 'lover, or spouse', to the Harlem slang of the 1930s, 'a term for the vagina'." [1] In blues usage, however, the cylindrical pastry was at least as easily used as a metaphor for the phallus.
The book Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues cites a recording by Peg Leg Howell and His Gang as an example of sexual metaphor in the blues:
- Jelly-roll, jelly-roll, ain't so hard to find.
- Ain't a baker shop in town bake 'em brown like mine
- I got a sweet jelly, a lovin' sweet jelly roll,
- If you taste my jelly, it'll satisfy your worried soul [2]
The expression appears in numerous blues and jazz songs, such as I Ain't Gonna Give Nobody None of This Jelly Roll by Clarence Williams (which was recorded by Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, and many other singers in the 1920s), and Billy Eckstine's Jelly, Jelly, with the line "Jelly roll killed my pappy, and run my mother stone blind" from the 1940s. The phrase is best remembered from the nickname of early jazz bandleader Jelly Roll Morton.
Van Morrison included the term in numerous songs, such as "And It Stoned Me" and "He Ain't Give You None". The term is also used repeatedly in the Grateful Dead song "Dupree's Diamond Blues." Sonic Youth's "Dirty Boots" describes "all the girls there playin' on a jelly roll," and declares that it's "time to rock the road/And tell the story of the jelly rollin'." [3]