need english translation again...

[foodnfoto]

Oops....my bad.
Sorry RZN
Thus another example of miscommunication even within the same language.
What do you call cornmeal in the Queen's English? My Welsh grandmother always called cornmeal, cornflour. Of course she always said "al-you-MIN-yum" for al-OO-min-um.

[rzn]

it's OK, I have an Australian friend who to this day (30 years later) is still embarassed about having asked our high school chemistry teacher for a "rubber" (eraser).

BTW the chem teacher was the 64 year old ex home-ec little old lady that got bumped when there were cut backs, nobody wanted to fire her, & the chem slot was open that year, so she was basically a year long sub.

My friend had just come over, no one had any idea what she was asking for, when it was finally figured out, the teacher told her the proper term was eraser, but was to mortifed to explain rubber, so a couple of her classmates got to do that later since she had no idea why the teacher was so embarassed...

[Jock]

Rubber That's funny and I can totally relate.

I do not recall growing up ever seeing anything that came close to what we call cornmeal. These days in Britain you can buy Polenta which is a coarser grind of cornmeal but I believe cornmeal as we know it is still unheard of in Britain. I can't speak for Australia though.

Jock

[AprilB]

Found my book...still looking...

April

[felixe the dog]

To echo Jock, Cornflour is cornstarch - but, it depends what you are using it for.
The primary ingredient for cornflour over here is Wheat starch.
Yes you can get cornflour which is cornstarch (are you still with me?) but it is usually packaged as maize starch or maize-cornflour. If it is for baking, then the only issue is if the customer is a coeliac.
If it is for thickening a sauce, different starches have different properties and maize cornflour is more likely to undergo retrogradation than wheat starch (wheat cornflour). Don't worry I think this is only an Australian phenomenon!

Lets talk shortbread. Shortbread can be either sweet or savoury. In your case it is savoury and the confusion comes because the author should have used the term shortcrust. Foodnphoto is right, just use a pate brisee recipe. BTW sweet shortbread may also be referred to as sweetpaste or just good old shortbread. Most of these books are written by food editors/food stylists/home economists, so sometimes they can be innacurate in the wording.
Good luck!