What's the Difference Between Iced Coffee and Cold Brew?

It’s 2 p.m., which means it’s almost time to momentarily break free from the desk-chains of capitalism to engage in more capitalism by purchasing an overpriced caffeinated beverage to help you practice capitalism faster. And while you know you want coffee, the question arises: what’s the difference between the coffees you’re drinking? 

Iced coffee is exactly what it says it is: coffee that’s brewed hot, then served over ice. Sometimes, it’s brewed at double the strength, so that the melting ice doesn’t render it too watery. 

To make cold brew, however, coarse-ground coffee is steeped in cool water for around 12 to 24 hours. The grounds are then filtered out, and the resulting coffee concentrate can be mixed with milk, water, and/or ice. Because the process doesn’t involve any heat, many of the acids and oils that make coffee bitter don’t get released—resulting in a sweeter, “smoother” beverage. The caffeine content is generally higher in cold brew—an average 8-ounce iced coffee has 95 milligrams of caffeine, while a 10.5-ounce Stumptown cold brew stubby, for example, contains around 279 milligrams—and it uses up twice the amount of coffee grounds. This, plus the longer time it takes to make, is why cold brew is normally more expensive than the regular joe. 

And what about “nitro” cold brew, a term you may have seen popping up on fancy coffeeshop menus with teeth-rattling prices next to it? That’s cold brew that’s been run through a keg, a process that infuses the coffee with tiny nitrogen bubbles. The resulting drink is rich and frothy, with a foamy cap similar to that of Guinness. Perfect to hold you over until happy hour.

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What's the Difference Between Rowing and Crew?

Lessons one learns as an adult: you may have grown up in New England (🙋), attended an Ivy League school (🙋), and even gone through a short-lived adolescent phase in which you regularly wore rugby shirts and cable-knit sweaters (🙋), and you still may not know the different between crew and rowing. This is okay; What’s the Difference is here for you. 

Rowing, or “sweep rowing,” is a sport in which the participants row across a body of water with one oar per person. When the participants row with two oars per person, it is called “sculling”—and the oars are referred to as “sculls.” In rowing, there are 2, 4, or 8 rowers to a boat; in sculling, there are singles (1x) , pairs (2x), and quads (4x). These boats may or may not include a coxswain, who sits or lies down in the front or back of the boat and calls out directions to the rowers/scullers. 

“Rowing” and “crew” are in fact the same sport; the word “crew” is used by American schools and colleges to refer to the sport of rowing. The term comes from the nautical term for people who operate a boat—the term “crew team” is therefore redundant. Outside of the academic sphere, the sport is simply known as rowing.

Some more fun facts:

• Rowing was the first intercollegiate sport in the United States; the first race was between Harvard and Yale in 1852.

• Coxswains are typically very light, as not to add extra weight to the boat. Most leagues have a minimum weight for the coxswain; if the coxswain is below that weight, then they have to carry a bag of sand on board to compensate for the difference. 

• Physiologists claim that rowing a 2,000-meter race (1.25 miles) is equal to playing two back-to-back basketball games.

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What's the Difference Between Mozzarella, Burrata, and Straciatella?

It's the tail-end of tomato season, and, like the rest of us, you're looking for ways to help your private chef jazz up the Sunday-evening caprese. My tip: make like Pat Sajak and buy a couple extra vowels, because straciatella and burrata are going light up the appetizer spread. But before you send your butler to the cheese shop, let’s parse the difference between mozzarella and its creamy cousins.

Mozzarella is an old friend: a fresh cheese made with cow milk (or, in the case of mozzarella di bufala, water-buffalo milk). The milk is separated into curds and whey; the curds then get strained, sliced, and submerged in a bath of 180–185°F water. They’re kneaded until they’re stretchy and elastic, then shaped into smooth, round balls.

(There’s a wide spectrum of quality and appearance within mozzarelladom: there are the packets of low-moisture, pre-shredded stuff found in any grocery store in America, and the snow-white balls of it in Naples that shudder when you look at them. But each of these comes out of the same mozzarella-making process.)

You get straciatella when you take strands of fresh mozzarella and soak them in fresh cream; the result is a not-quite-solid, not-quite-liquid luxurious mess that makes a single piece of toast and cheese seem like it’s worth $9 at a fancy restaurant.

And burrata happens when you take a ball of mozzarella and fill it with that very straciatella, so that what looks like a solid mass of mozzarella ends up oozing a mozzarella-and-cream puddle as soon as you cut into it.

How’s that to cure your caprese ennui?

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What's the Difference Between Cement and Concrete?

While commuting to work in a place such as, say, New York City, one might find oneself taking in the landscape’s natural beauty: the scent of hot garbage wafting through the air, the wail of various sirens, the odd substances crusting and pooling on the sidewalk. One might ask oneself, Why didn’t I pursue a career as a ski instructor? Also, is this sidewalk made of cement or concrete? And that’s when a weekly What’s the Difference email, and its focused desire to turn the splitting of hairs into a little bit of delight, makes the commute a little more bearable.

Because it turns out, cement and concrete are two very different things. Cement is a powdery substance made up of limestone, sand, clay, bauxite, and/or iron ore, and sometimes includes materials like shells, chalk, marl, shale, blast furnace slag, fly ash, and/or slate. (Some of these “cementitious materials” are actually similar to the volcanic ashes the ancient Romans used to build the Colosseum!) The process of making cement is actually pretty cool: raw materials like limestone and clay are quarried, then crushed into pieces around 3 inches or smaller. The crushed rock is then combined with iron ore or fly ash; ground into even smaller pieces; and then fed into a cement kiln, which has a diameter of 12 feet and, in many cases, is longer than the height of a 40-story building. The high temperatures in the kiln unite the particles into a new substance called clinker, which comes out red-hot in balls the size of marbles. The clinker is cooled in special coolers, then ground into a powder. The resulting cement is so fine that it can pass through a sieve capable of holding water; one pound of cement contains 150 billion grains.

So if cement is a powder, what’s concrete? Concrete is a mixture of sand, gravel, and/or crushed stone (known as “aggregates”) and a paste made of water and—wait for it—CEMENT. This water-cement paste (also used in mortar for brick-laying) coats the sand, gravel, and stone and binds them all together. Through a chemical process called hydration, the paste hardens and gains strength over time; over 90% of a concrete mix’s strength will be reached within four weeks, with the remaining 10% accumulating over decades. Typically, a mix of concrete will contain 10–15% cement, 60–70% aggregates, and 15–20% water, with air bubbles sometimes making up another 5–8%. That concrete is used to build everything from skyscrapers to streets, houses to highways—and probably the very sidewalk you walked down today.

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What's the Difference Between Baby Back Ribs and Spare Ribs?

When we’re pawing into a rack of ribs, it’s easy to think of them as being disembodied from the pigs themselves, perfectly butchered and portioned somewhere outside of our consciousness and simply appearing, grilled/smoked/barbecued and sauced, on a platter in front of us. Here’s the reality: pigs are animals, and they have ribs. These ribs, when divided horizontally, are made up of two types of cuts: baby back ribs and spare ribs. Let’s explore the differences, shall we?

Baby back ribs come from the parts of the ribs that are connected to the backbone, beneath the loin muscle, and are curved where the meet the spine. They’re called “babies” because they’re shorter than spare ribs; on the longest end, they’re around 6 inches, and they taper down to about 3 inches on the shorter end. Depending on how they’re butchered, they may have around ½ inch of loin meat attached to the top. Baby back ribs are more tender and leaner than spare ribs, and are typically more expensive. Each rack is around 2 pounds, around half of which is bone, and 1 rack feeds around 1 hungry adult.

Spare ribs are cut from the ends of baby back ribs and run along to the pig’s breast bone. One side has exposed bone—that’s where they meet the baby backs—and the other side, the side near the breast bone, is where the rib tips are, a flap of meat that has some small bones and cartilage in it. (If you’ve ever seen St. Louis–cut ribs, those are spare ribs with the rib tips removed.) Compared to baby backs, spare ribs have more meat between the bones and less meat on top, and that meat generally has more marbling (and more flavor). The bones are straighter, longer, and flatter than baby backs, and a rack—which ranges from 2.5 to 3.5 pounds, around half of which is bone and cartilage—typically feeds 2 adults. 

And riblets? True riblets are made by cutting a rack of ribs into 2- to 4-inch pieces. However, what Applebees refers to as “riblets” are actually "button ribs," which are actually not ribs at all. They’re from a long, thin cut of meat that runs along the spine just after the rearmost rib, a cut that’s around 6 inches long, 1 ½ inches wide, and ¼ inch thick. There are no real ribs in there, just little round nubs (or “buttons”) of bone to gnaw around! 

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What's the Difference Between Venomous and Poisonous?

Summer is over, Labor Day weekend has come and gone, and we’re all feeling the sting of being back at work. But is that creeping feeling paralyzing you at your desk the result of poison, or of venom? Let’s find out!  

The term “venomous” applies to organisms that bite or sting to inject their toxins, while the term “poisonous” applies to organisms that unleash their toxins when you eat them. 

That means that most snakes, contrary to popular belief, are venomous, not poisonous—with the exception of the garter snake, which has a harmless bite but is poisonous to eat because it absorbs the poison of the newts and salamanders it preys on. Other venomous creatures include dangerous spiders, like the black widow; some types of iguanas, like the komodo dragon; and the platypus, which can sting with a fang-like spur on the inner side of each of its ankles. Cnidarians, which include jellyfish, sea anemones, and coral, are also venomous; they sting their prey with the help of nematocysts, small capsules filled with coiled, barbed threads that often contain toxins.  

On the poisonous side of the spectrum, you’ll find most amphibians; many frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders carry around toxins on their skin and in other parts of their body, making them dangerous for humans (and many other animals) to consume.  

When it comes to plants, the line between poisonous and venomous gets a little blurrier. Some plants are straight-up poisonous to eat, such as lily of the valley and oleander. Other plants, though they don’t have fangs, spurs, or nematocysts, are more in the venomous category; stinging nettles, for instance, have bulbous tips that break off when an animal passes by, revealing small, tooth-like structures that pierce the skin and inject a mix of toxins. And poison ivy? Technically, it’s more towards the venomous side of the spectrum; we get those itchy rashes when we brush past it, not when we consume it.

Before you go, here are some poisonous/venomous superlatives, to keep this week’s angst in perspective:

Most Venomous Spider: the Brazilian wandering spider, whose bite can cause muscle shock or even death.
Most Venomous Fish: the tropical stonefish, which is camouflaged to look just like a stone on the ocean floor but has 13 dorsal spines, each equipped with enough toxin to kill a shark (or human).
Most Poisonous Frog: the golden poison frog, which has enough poison to kill ten grown men.
Fastest Venomous Snake: the black mamba, which also happens to be one of the world's most venomous snakes and can move at a speed of 12.5 miles per hour.
Most Terrifying Way to Die: a sting from the Carukia barnesi species of jellyfish, which contains enough of the fight-or-flight hormone noradrenalin to make a human literally panic to death.

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What's the Difference Between an Egg Roll, Spring Roll, and Summer Roll?

We’re all familiar with the delights of a hand-held, deep-fried, cylindrical packet of meat and vegetables, primed for dipping into cold duck sauce or hot mustard and subsequently burning our mouths with. But do we know what we’re actually eating? Let’s find out!

Spring rolls hail from China, and they have super-thin wrappers made from flour and water; these turn shatteringly crisp when fried. Their fillings usually include some combination of pork, shrimp, bean sprouts, and cabbage, and they come with a side of vinegar (for the Shanghainese versions) or plum sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and/or a Worcestershire-based dipping sauce (for the Cantonese versions). According to the Chicago Tribune, spring rolls were originally made for Chinese New Year banquets and stacked to look like bars of gold; they got the name "spring roll" because in the lunar calendar, the New Year marked the start of spring.

If the spring roll is the Chinese species in the taxonomy of fried-rolls-of-stuff, know that it is one in a galaxy of others across Asia. These might not be "spring rolls" in name—in fact, in some cases, they may be translated on a menu as "egg rolls"—but they’re all in the same crispy genus: cha gio in Vietnam, which have rice-paper wrappers; popia thot in Thailand, which are usually filled with glass noodles, bean sprouts, and wood-ear mushrooms; lumpia Shanghai in the Philippines, which are skinner and longer than other types of spring rolls; lumpia Semarang in Indonesia, which are filled with shrimp or chicken.

The egg roll is a spring-roll variant that was created in America; Andrew Coe's book Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States pinpoints its invention in New York by a cook named Lum Fung in the 1930s. The difference is the addition of egg to the wrapper batter, which makes it thicker and more pasta-like before frying. The easiest way to differentiate an egg roll from a spring roll? Their skins are blistered and bumpy; spring rolls are smooth. Egg rolls are usually filled with cabbage and roast pork—heavy on the cabbage—and sometimes include minced bamboo shoots and/or water chestnuts. You’ll find them served with a side of duck sauce, sweet and sour sauce, soy sauce, and/or hot mustard.

Summer rolls are Vietnamese in origin, and unlike their spring- and egg-roll cousins, they’re fresh and salad-y—which is why they are also occasionally sold as "salad rolls." (You may also see them on a menu as "fresh spring rolls.") They consist of a rice-paper wrapper filled with vermicelli noodles, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, herbs like mint, cilantro, and/or Thai basil, and shrimp or pork, and they’re usually accompanied by a peanutty dipping sauce, hoisin sauce, and/or Sriracha.

And with that, I will leave you with this horrifying photo, courtesy of the cookbook Lucky Peach Presents: 101 Easy Asian Recipes:

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What's the Difference Between a Patio, Deck, and Porch?

It’s officially late August, which means it is prime time for kicking back, cracking open a new book and a bottle of rose, and indulging in some leisure. And what better settings to leisure in than those of a porch, patio, or deck—particularly when you know exactly what kind of structure you’re reposing in, and can educate your fellow leisure-ers while they ignore you and attempt to read their Us Weekly in peace?

Let’s start with the most strictly defined concept: the porch. A porch is covered structure that is attached to a house, usually through the front or back door (though it can also serve as an extension of, say, a living room). It can be open-air or enclosed, usually with screens or glass. Unlike their patio-and-deck cousins, porches are a part of a house’s architecture; usually, they share a roof with the rest of the house, rather than being a separate addition. 

A patio, on the other hand, can be covered or uncovered, connected to a house or free-standing, and made out of essentially any material (though they are usually paved in some way, whether with stones, bricks, or concrete). It’s a pretty loose concept; patios can come in any size, shape, or enclosure type, though they are usually ground-level and require no railings. A patio is considered a courtyard if it’s surrounded by walls. 

A deck is specifically a wooden platform—it can be slightly raised, or high enough to require steps—and is recognizable as a deliberate addition to a house, rather than part of its architecture. Like a patio, it can be covered or uncovered, attached or unattached; one may choose, for example, to build a standalone viewing deck of a particularly eye-catching vista on one’s property. (If you have one of those, please holler; I will happily drag myself out of my porch-less, patio-less, deck-less apartment and pay you a visit.)

While we’re here, let’s explore some more leisure-setting buzz words. A veranda is a large porch that surrounds a house and provides access to both the front and back doors. A lanai is the Hawaiian word for veranda. And a portico is a porch supported by columns, specifically leading to a front door of a house (or building).

Happy leisure-ing!

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What's the Difference Between Crispy and Crunchy?

We’ve all been there: face-up, couch-ridden, jumbo bag of potato chips or Tostitos or salty/carb-y snack of choice in hand, staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling or at the television or at the computer, contemplating life or heartbreak or truly nothing at all. 

But have you ever paused, mid-mastication, to muse: Is what I’m eating a crispyfood, or a crunchy food? Is the mechanical force of my jaw and its subsequent auditory output more in line with that of a crisp, or a crunch? No? You haven’t wondered that? Well, good thing What’s the Difference is here to clear things up, anyway.

According to the scientific article “Critical Evaluation of Crispy and Crunchy Textures: A Review,” published in the International Journal of Food Properties, a crispy food is defined as:
 

“a dry rigid food which, when bitten with the incisors [Ed. Note: the four pointy teeth at the front of your mouth], fractures quickly, easily, and totallywhile emitting a relatively loud, high-pitched sound.”

On the other hand, a crunchy food is defined as:
 

“a dense-textured food which, when chewed with the molars, undergoes a series of fractures while emitting relatively loud, low-pitched sounds.”

Let’s apply these definitions to real life. Lay’s potato chips? Crispy. Ice? Crunchy. Saltines? Crispy. Those hard, sourdough pretzels? Crunchy. Celery? Both—it snaps cleanly, and also undergoes a series of fractures when chewed. 

Okay, as you were. Enjoy the symphony of snacking!

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What's the Difference Between Lox, Nova, and Smoked Salmon?

Sometimes, we think we know things. Sometimes, some things are such a part of the fabric of our lives and our history and our surroundings that our sense of rightness about a certain topic feels almost innate. And yet sometimes, we are wrong. My dear readers, this might be one of those times—buckle up. 

You probably know a Jew or two—you might even be a Jew yourself. But even being a New York Jew does not make you pre-programmed to know the differences between lox, Nova, and smoked salmon. That “bagel and lox” you eat on Sunday mornings… might not be a bagel and lox. Oy gevalt, I know. Deep breaths.  

Luckily, Niki Russ Federman, the fourth-generation owner of Russ and Daughters, is here to talk us through it. Let’s start with the basics:

There are two major cooking processes in play when discussing the salmons of the appetizing counter: curing and smoking. Curing is a process in which a food is preserved in salt (and sometimes additional flavorings/aromatics). Smoking is a process in which a food is exposed to, well, smoke—with a “cold-smoke” for salmon happening below 85°F, and a “hot-smoke” for salmon happening above it. According to Niki, “cold-smoked salmon is the stuff that can be sliced so thin you can read the Times through it. Cured salmon has a similar texture, but without any smoke flavor. Hot-smoked salmon has a completely different texture—meaty and flaky, like cooked salmon.”

Lox—or “belly lox,” which is the actual name for it—is salmon that has been cured in salt. (Like gravlax, which is cured in sugar and salt, there’s no smoking involved.) It’s the version of preserved salmon people ate before refrigeration was widely available; salmon from the Pacific was hauled across the country in gigantic salt baths, and fed to the Jewish immigrants of New York before a morning at shul or a long day of work. The taste of true lox is incredibly salty and assertive; “we think bagels with lox was invented because belly lox needed bread and dairy to cut it,” says Niki. “People will constantly come in and ask for lox, and it sometimes requires a little back and forth to find out what they’re actually looking for. If someone over a certain age asks assertively for belly lox, we’re not going to question him or her, but most people end up wanting one of our seven varieties of smoked salmon.”

Do you hear that, folks? What you probably enjoy eating on your bagel is smoked salmon, specifically cold-smoked salmon—not lox. 

To Niki, the “quintessential smoked salmon”—“what you think of when you think of New York–style smoked salmon”—is Gaspe Nova, or Nova for short. “Nova” refers to both the geographical location where the fish is caught (Nova Scotia) and a style of smoked salmon, in which the fish is first cured and then lightly smoked. 

At Russ and Daughters, you’ll find the luxe Gaspe Nova—with a “marbling and fattiness that give the salmon a silky quality”—along with Scottish salmon and Western Nova. Scottish salmon is a great middle ground; “it has a lovely smoke to it, but since it’s a fat salmon, it retains a lot of moisture and silkiness,” says Niki. Western Nova, which is made with wild king salmon, is leaner and more muscular, with a tighter texture and more assertive flavor than the other styles. 

Rounding out the salmon options is kippered salmon, which is hot-smoked at 150°F. This gives it a texture more akin to poached salmon, and it’s served in straight up-and-down slices rather than the paper-thin cuts of cold-smoked or cured stuff. “For me, this is one of the unsung heroes of appetizing,” says Niki. “I think it’s so delicious.”

One more thing (and a bonus What’s the Difference!): don’t you dare call this stuff “deli.” “In the Jewish tradition, you don’t mix meat and dairy, so appetizing is fish and dairy—stuff you’d eat with bagels,” says Niki. “It’s the sister food tradition to deli”—which is the meat version of appetizing—“and it’s been that way for over a hundred years.”

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What's the Difference Between Trash and Garbage?

If you subscribe to this newsletter, you probably love to learn. You’re definitely smart. And you, like me, probably spend approximately zero time thinking about the difference between trash and garbage. Whatever—it’s just stuff you throw out! 

But this newsletter is here to make life a little more exciting, and what’s more exciting than taking the things we deal with every day—like trash and garbage—and becoming more informed about them?? Right?? 

So to answer one of life’s most pressing questions: YES, there is a difference between trash and garbage. Garbage is made up of stuff that comes from the bathroom or kitchen—think moldy bread, gnawed-on chicken wings, used paper towels, empty bags of potato chips and peanut M&Ms. Trash, on the other hand, is everything else: broken furniture, old tires, boxes of stuff collecting dust in the attic, President Trump, etc.

And remember: don’t forget to recycle!

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What's the Difference Between Shrimp and Prawns?

There are few crustaceans as misunderstood as the shrimp and the prawn. Some people think they’re the same thing; others think they differ only by size; others think they’re simply called different things in different countries, or regions, or states. And yet: all of these people are wrong! Shrimp and prawns are completely different creatures. Yes, they’re both decapods—which means they have external skeletons and 10 legs—but that’s where the similarities end. Shrimp belong to the sub-order Pleocyemata, and prawns belong to the sub-order Dendrobranchiata. Let’s explore what this difference means, shall we?

GILLS: As you may remember from ninth-grade biology, gills are structured in a way that maximizes their surface area. Shrimp have plate-like gills, which consist of flat, layered arrangements; prawns have branching gills, which is where I’m assuming the “branchiata” part of their name comes from.

CLAWS AND PINCERS: Shrimp have claws on two pairs of their legs, and their front pincers are the largest. Prawns have claws on three pairs of their legs, and their second pincers are larger than their front ones.

BODY STRUCTURE: Let’s say these decapods have four distinct areas of their body: the head, the thorax (the area right behind the head), the abdomen (the “torso”), and the tail. In prawns, the head overlaps with the thorax, which overlaps with the abdomen—much like shingles on a roof. In shrimp, the thorax overlaps with both the head and the abdomen, like a cummerbund.

HABITAT: Prawns live in fresh water, while shrimp can come from either fresh water or salt water (though the majority of species come from salt water). Fun fact: the colder the water the shrimp is from, the smaller the size! (I always thought the tiny shrimp in Scandinavian-esque shrimp salads were creepy, and I no longer do.)

SIZE: Generally speaking, prawns are larger than shrimp—though this can differ depending on the species.

TASTE: Anyone who tries to tell you that shrimp and prawns taste different is wrong. Sure, some prawns are sweeter than shrimp, and vice versa—but it’s really dependent on the species, rather than the sub-orders as a whole.

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What's the Difference Between a Pond and a Lake?

Psh, you might be thinking. This is a lame one. I totally know the difference between a pond and a lake. I just swam in one this weekend, for God’s sake! I dove into its cool waters after manning the grill all day! I drank a bottle of ice-cold rose while lounging lazily on a swan-shaped float positioned on its very surface! This is a dumb newsletter!

Sorry to burst your bubble, folks, but to cut to the chase: THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE.

Let’s get into it. Scientists in the field of liminology (the study of inland waters) have been trying to categorize the differences between lakes, ponds, and wetlands for quite some time. (In evolutionary terms, a “lentic” body of water—meaning an inland body of water with currents that do not flow in a continuous and definite direction—should go from a lake to a pond to a wetland.) Some scientists tried to use thermal stratification, saying a lake was deep enough to have two to three layers of different temperatures during warmer-weather months. Other scientists tried to use plant growth, saying that ponds were shallow enough for sunlight to reach the bottom, so that rooted plants could grow across their entire width. 

However, none of this matters. Us common folk are completely incapable of rational thought and/or respecting the fruits of scientific inquiry and started calling things PONDS and LAKES completely arbitrarily. (Scientists ended up concluding that they couldn’t divide these things into precise categories, either.) So when it comes to the actual naming of things—with actual bodies of water called Sebago Lake or Walden Pond or whatever place you swam in this weekend—there is not even an attempt at any sort of scientific decency. For example, Echo “Lake” in Conway, NH has a surface area of 14 acres and is 11 feet deep, while Island “Pond” in Derry, NH has a surface area of almost 500 acres and is 80 feet deep. In fact, it’s common for a body of water to switch from a lake to a pond (or vice versa) to better appeal to potential real-estate buyers—would you rather live near Dishwater Pond or Mirror Lake?

If you’re itching for a little distinction to get you through the week, take comfort in knowing that scientists do recognize the difference between “deep” ponds and lakes and “shallow” ponds and lakes. “Deep” ponds and lakes have some areas of underwater plant growth, along with deeper portions where sunlight does not hit the bottom; they also have distinct thermal layers in the summer. “Shallow” ponds and lakes have rooted plant growth across the entire bottom, consist of only one thermal layer, and usually have more muddy sediments than their deeper brethren.

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What's the Difference Between Ice Cream, Gelato, Frozen Yogurt, Sorbet, Sherbet, and Sherbert?

Welcome to What’s the Difference: FROZEN DESSERTS EDITION. This is such a rich category that it could easily be divided up into multiple weeks, but why should you be deprived of the pleasure of absorbing all of this textured knowledge all at once? 

It’s getting hot over here, and whatever frozen dessert we’re eating is starting to melt, so let’s get right into it—starting with:

ICE CREAM VS. GELATO VS. FROZEN YOGURT

There are lots of variations in the ice cream category—and that’s even before we get into the actual flavors—so we’re going to keep it somewhat simple. In the United States, all ice creams must contain at least 10% butterfat (fat from cream and milk). Standard or “Philadelphia-style” ice creams are made with cream, milk, sugar, and various other minor ingredients; French or custard ice creams have the addition of egg yolks. (Therein lies the difference between vanilla and French vanilla flavors—French vanilla gets its yellow color from those yolks.). Ice cream is usually served at around 0–10°F, which gives it that classic, just-scooped-from-the-chest-freezer texture.

On the other hand, gelato is only required by Italian law to have 3.5% butterfat—significantly less than American ice cream. And because the more butterfat a mixture contains, the more air it’s able to absorb while churning, gelato contains significantly less air than ice cream—which makes it taste richer and more flavorful. It’s also served at a warmer temperature—between 10–20°F—giving it a softer, glossier texture.

Frozen yogurt, which became popular in the seventies and eighties, also contains significantly less butterfat than regular ice cream; it’s able to stay frozen thanks to various additives, such as corn syrup, powdered milk, or vegetable gums. It actually barely contains any yogurt at all; according to Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, the standard proportion of other dairy to yogurt is 4:1. And depending on the recipe, the yogurt bacteria cultures may be entirely eliminated throughout the process, depriving you of the good-gut stuff that comes along with them.

Now, let’s head into:

SORBET VS. SHERBET VS. SHERBERT

This one is a little easier. Sorbet is simply a mix of fruit, water, and sugar, which is then churned together like ice cream. Sherbet is sorbet with the addition of a bit of milk or cream; according to USDA regulations, it must contain 1–2% butterfat.

And sherbet vs. sherbert? According to Merriam Webster, they’re the same thing: 

The word in question is from Turkish and Persian words that both trace back to the Arabic word sharba, meaning "drink." All three words—the Turkish and Persian words are şerbet and sharbat, respectively—lack an "r" in the second syllable, but when the word was imported into English in the early 17th century, it was coming from languages many English speakers considered exotic, and spelling was all over the place. Among the many variations that existed in the early years, two that appeared then are still in use today: sherbet and sherbert.

By the late 18th century sherbet had become the established spelling, but after only a few intermittent uses in the 18th and 19th centuries, sherbert staged a minor comeback in the 20th century. It's now a fully established (though far lesser-used) variant.

So, now you have lots of fun facts to bring with you into your pre-July 4th celebrations this weekend. Stay cool!

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What's the Difference Between Denim and Chambray?

To understand the differences between denim and chambray, we first must ask the question: What, exactly, is a fabric? A fabric is a collection of fibres and/or yarns that, in the case of a “woven fabric,” are interlaced at 90-degree angles to each other. The fibres going up and down are called the “warp,” and the fibres that run in the opposite direction—at the right angle to the warp—are called the “weft.”

Got it? Let’s move on. Both denim and chambray are made from cotton fibres, and they both are typically blue. And where does that blue come from? In both fabrics, the yarns used in the warp—the up-and-down fibres—are dyed indigo, and the yarns used in the weft—the fibres in the opposite direction—are white.

Now, let’s explore their differences. In chambray, the fibres are woven in a simple criss-cross fashion, with the warp running vertical and the weft running horizontal. In this case, the dyed warp and the white weft are equally present, giving chambray a sometimes-lighter-than-denim hue. (Think of the top of a lattice pie—it’s the same weave as chambray.)

With denim, things get a little more complicated. Denim is woven in a twill fashion, which means that instead of the warp going over one thread in the weft (like in chambray), the warp goes over two threads. This creates a diagonal weave, as seen here:

This diagonal weave will usually result in a heavier material, though both denim and chambray can come in heavier and lighter styles.

Another way of telling the difference: you know how the outward-facing side of your jeans is darker than the inside-facing side of your jeans? That’s because the outward side is exposed to two times more of the dyed warp yarns, and the inside is exposed to two times more of the white weft yarns. With chambray, the inside and the outside will look pretty much the same.

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What's the Difference Between Chicken Nuggets, Tenders, Cutlets, and Fingers?

Ah, the wonders of a boneless, skinless chicken breast: that unsullied expanse of solid muscle, that somewhat-flavorless-but-still-chickeny-enough-to-know-what-we're-eating taste we know so well, that blank canvas so eager to be sliced and chopped and smashed and bathed in various mixtures of condiments. Chances are, we are deeply familiar with this wonder of the world, as well as its many children: the cutlet, the finger, the tender, and the nugget. But how familiar? As we delight in these shining specimens of breaded-and-fried meat, do we know exactly what we’re eating?

Let’s start with the simplest concept: chicken cutlets. Chicken cutlets are boneless, skinless chicken breasts that have been sliced in half horizontally, creating a thinner piece of meat. These cutlets are then often pounded even thinner before cooking.

Next comes chicken fingers. To make chicken fingers, the chicken breast is cut into strips. (If you see something referred to as “chicken strips,” they are probably chicken fingers.) These are not to be confused with chicken tenders, which are made from an actual cut of meat: the pectoralis minor, a small muscle that runs directly under the chicken breast. This is also called the “inner filet.”

If we’re getting technical, a chicken finger could be made from the chicken breast or the inner filet—which means that a chicken tender can be a chicken finger, but not all chicken fingers are chicken tenders.

Lastly, we have chicken nuggets. Unlike its more pure brethren, chicken nuggets are usually made from chopped and/or processed meat that is then reformed into a chicken-nugget shape. The meat involved does not have to be breast meat—it could be meat from any part of the chicken. Yup, these are your McNuggets, folks; consume at your own risk.

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What's the Difference Between Hispanic and Latino?

Words matter here at What’s the Difference HQ, and regardless of the tenor and tone of our current administration, it’s important to understand the meanings of the words and labels that we use every day. Case in point: Hispanic vs. Latino (or “Latina” for a woman, or “Latinx” as the gender-neutral or non-binary alternative). Though the words are often used interchangeably, they are, in fact, two markedly different terms: Hispanic denotes language, while Latino denotes geography. 

Let’s start with Latino (/a/x). “Latino” is shorthand for the Spanish word latinoamericano, and it refers to anyone born in or with ancestors from Latin America. (Latin America includes South America as well as Mexico, Central America, and the islands of the Caribbean where a Romance language is spoken.) There are a few exceptions to this: people from English-speaking Belize and Dutch-speaking Suriname aren’t always recognized or don’t always identify as Latino.

“Hispanic” is an English term that is used to describe people born in or with ancestors from Spanish-speaking Latin America, as well as Spain itself. With this definition, someone from Brazil could be Latino (/a/x), but not Hispanic; someone from Spain could be Hispanic, but not Latino (/a/x); and someone from, say, Ecuador could be both.

These are very top-level definitions, and there are a few things worth noting. 1) There are many indigenous people from Spanish-speaking countries who may not identify as Hispanic. 2) In any and all cases, “Latino” and “Hispanic” refer only to someone’s origin and/or ancestry, NOT their race. 3) Labels are lame!!!! Things often get problematic when we try to group people into categories. So even if you’re using the terminology correctly, remember to be thoughtful about it—and always defer to a person’s chosen way of referring to oneself. 

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What's the Difference Between a Cobbler, Crisp, Crumble, Buckle, Betty, Pandowdy, etc.?

There are a lot of ways to get cute with this topic—lots of fun food-history tidbits to dredge up, lots of delightfully retro and oddly worded recipes to photocopy from my extensive collection of old-fashioned community cookbooks and brand-marketing ephemera—but let's get down to business. We all like fruit desserts, and we all like being right. So here is your reference to refer to while cooking, consuming, and conversing about the cobblered, crisped, and crumbled cooked-fruit casseroles we love. 

COBBLER
A mess of fruit topped—or “cobbled”—with biscuit dough, pie dough, or cake batter and then baked in an oven. Some old-fashioned variations of cobbler are inverted before serving, so the biscuit-y stuff ends up on the bottom. 

CRUMBLE
A deep-dish fruit dessert topped with a streusel made of butter, flour, oats, and sometimes nuts. 

CRISP
A crumble but with NO OATS in the streusel.

BETTY
A casserole made with layers of fruit and buttered bread crumbs and baked. 

BUCKLE
A fruit-studded coffee cake with a streusel topping. According to my research, this streusel can be made either WITH OATS or WITHOUT OATS.

BOY BAIT
A buckle but without a streusel topping.

GRUNT
A biscuit, pie, or cake-topped fruit dessert that’s cooked in a covered Dutch oven or cast-iron skillet on the stove. Grunts are very similar to cobblers, but they are STEAMED instead of BAKED. 

SLUMP
The New England name for a cobbler. 

PANDOWDY
Similar to a cobbler, but the biscuit or pie dough is rolled out and placed on top of the fruit. During the baking process, the topping is broken up with a knife or spoon and pushed into the fruit, causing the fruit to bubble over it. 

SONKER
Essentially the same thing as a cobbler? But worth checking out Kim Severson’s article in the New York Times for the full context.

SCHLUMPF
The only time I’ve heard of a schlumpf is through food professional and dear friend Marian Bull, who has a delicious Blueberry Schlumpf recipe on Food52. It looks like it’s technically a crisp (NO OATS!), but let this serve as a reminder that you can essentially make up any name for any of these types of desserts and it’ll sound about right.  

BONUS ENTRY:

SHORTCAKE
A combination of lightly sweetened biscuits, whipped cream, and fresh fruit, prepared separately and layered together for serving. Its components are similar to that of a cobbler (fruit + biscuit), but the fruit is not cooked and the biscuits are prepared on their own, rather than dolloped on top of the fruit mixture before baking. (Since the shortcake uses fresh fruit instead of cooked fruit, it’s in its own category.)

And in case this was too many words and you enjoy gazing at Excel spreadsheets devoted to your favorite desserts, I present you with a handy table summarizing all of the above:

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What's the Difference Between Weather and Climate?

When one discusses both the climate and the weather, one is drawing from the same bucket of building blocks: think temperature, humidity, solar radiation, precipitation, wind speed, etc. However, there are important—and far-reaching—distinctions between the two concepts, all that hinge around duration. As Encyclopedia Britannica so aptly puts it: “Weather and climate relate to one another in much the same way that an inning in a baseball game compares with the whole game.”

Let’s start with weather. When I say that it’s wet and chilly in New York City this morning, I’m describing the weather: it’s a set of conditions in the atmosphere for a short period of time, such as the day, night, or at some point in either. Weather can change from hour to hour or even minute to minute, and can refer to places as specific as neighboring towns, or parts of a city, or even opposite sides of a street. 

Climate, on the other hand, can be thought of as the average weather conditions over a long period of time—usually thirty years or longer. While weather is constantly changing, climate is (or should be) less volatile. In addition, climate usually refers to a large swath of geography, such as large parts of a country, or whole countries, or even parts of the planet. (The atmospheric conditions of the Sahara desert or the Amazon basin or the Arctic Circle, for example, would generally be referred to as climate, not weather.) 

Examining these two definitions, it’s worth nothing how dangerous it is to think of weather and climate as the same thing. It’s normal for weather to be constantly changing; it’s not normal for climate to be doing so. When climates shift even slightly, the consequences can be much more severe than a freak afternoon thunderstorm. (If you haven’t seen this deeply terrifying New York magazine piece, it’s worth a read.) We’ll dig into the differences between climate change and global warming another week—stay tuned. For now, stay dry!

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What's the Difference Between Jam, Jelly, Preserves, Compote, Marmalade, and Chutney?

As spring and summer fruits begin to reveal themselves at the market, it feels appropriate to explore the nuances in the various methods of preserving them. Jam, jelly, preserves, marmalade, compote, and chutney all involve some combination of fruit, sugar, and heat, and they rely on pectin—a natural fiber found most plants that helps cooked fruit firm up—for texture. (Not all fruits contain the same amount of pectin, so powdered pectin is sometimes added—we’ll get into that below.) The underlying difference between all of them? How much of the physical fruit is used in the final product. 

On one end of the spectrum, we have jelly: the firmest and smoothest product of the bunch. Jelly is made from fruit juice, which is usually extracted from cooked, crushed fruit. (That extraction process, which involves straining the fruit mixture through a fine mesh fabric, is also what makes jelly clear.) The resulting juice is then heated with sugar, acid, and oftentimes additional powdered pectin to get that firm, gel-like texture. That cranberry stuff you eat on Thanksgiving, the stuff that slides out of the can in one perfect cylinder, ridges intact? Definitely jelly.

Next up we have jam, which is made from chopped or pureed fruit (rather than fruit juice) cooked down with sugar. Its texture is usually looser and more spoonable than jelly, with stuff like seeds or skin sometimes making an appearance (think of strawberry or blueberry jam, for example). Chutney is a type of jam made without any additional pectin and flavored with vinegar and various spices, and it’s often found in Indian cuisines. 

Preserves contain the most physical fruit of the bunch—either chopped into larger pieces or preserved whole, in the case of things like cherry or strawberry preserves. Sometimes, the preserves will be held together in a loose syrup; other times, the liquid is more jammy. Marmalade is simply the name for preserves made with citrus, since it includes the citrus rinds as well as the inner fruit and pulp. (Citrus rinds contain a ton of pectin, which is why marmalade oftentimes has a firmer texture more similar to jelly.)

Compote, a cousin to preserves, is made with fresh or dried fruit, cooked low and slow in a sugar syrup so that the fruit pieces stay somewhat intact. However, unlike preserves—which are usually jarred for future use—compote is usually used straight away.  

So, in short, here's your cheat sheet:

Jelly: fruit juice + sugar
Jam: chopped or pureed fruit + sugar
Chutney: chopped or pureed fruit + sugar + vinegar + spices
Preserves: whole fruit or fruit chunks + sugar
Marmalade: whole citrus (either chopped or left intact) + sugar
Compote: whole fruit or fruit chunks + sugar (but usually eaten immediately, not preserved)

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