according to my dictionary, it means exactly what you said, egg whites, beaten stiff, with sugar, and baked.
there are several kinds of meringue, basicaly, soft, medium and hard. soft meringue has less sugar, and is often browned..(lemon meringue pie) but hard meringue (four egg whites, 1lb of 10 X sugar) is called royal frosting.. even with out baking it dries (quickly!) to a hard, candy like shell) a medium meringue is stiffer, and can be put into a pastry tube, and piped into shapes (it is stiff enough to hold any shape.) bake it at 200 to 250 degrees (f) for about 1 hour.. it will still be white (very, very, light beige white) it will be crisp, and dry.. this kind of meringue is used to make pastry shells, (or molded in a rounded bowl, it makes a good sourse for skull bones.)
if you want to know about italian meringue, or nougat, we'll have to move to the "words from German thread" or PM's since this is becoming a food thread all to fast!
