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Greatness Thrust
As the story of the famous Berwick sponge cake gets retold, Mrs. Briggs emerges more clearly.
The
New York Times in 1894 picked up a story from the
Portland Transcript with the headline, "How the Berwick Sponge Cake Had Its Greatness Thrust Upon It."
The newspaper describes the eating of the famous Berwick sponge cake at the restaurant as "an event of consequence inseparable from travel over the Eastern Railroad."
One day in the 1860s a Mrs. B was mixing some cake dough when someone called her to another room, the newspaper reported. She left the dough on the table. Her daughter, then five or six years old, emptied something into the dough, the name of which the author was not at liberty to mention. (Cream of tartar? Baking soda?) Mrs. B. decided to bake the cake anyway, as the ingredient wouldn't harm anyone.
And…
Charles Dickens, during his 1868 tour of America, made his acquaintance with the Berwick famous sponge cake on his way from Portland to Boston.
Eleven-year-old Kate Smith (later Kate Douglas Wiggin) happened to travel on the same train as the writer she revered. When the train stopped in North Berwick, she looked out the window and saw Charles Dickens standing on the platform. Years later, she remembered,
His hands were plunged deep in his pockets (a favorite gesture), but presently one was removed to wave away laughingly a piece of the famous Berwick sponge cake, offered him by Mr. Osgood, of Boston, his travelling companion and friend.
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