The
etymological ingredients of food aren't always appetitizing
by
Howard Richler
In his book Crazy
English wordsmith Richard Lederer makes us
question the ingredients of many of our foods. After all, there's no
egg in eggplant, no peas or nuts in peanuts, and blackberries are
green and then red before they are ripe. How can we trust the
fruits we eat when a grapefruit has nothing to do with grape and a
pineapple doesn't seem to be related to a pine tree or an apple? Are
strawberries named for straw? What about raspberries?
In the case of “strawberry,” etymologists are divided on the meaning of “straw.” Whereas some believe it derives from an obsolete sense of the word,“small piece of chaff,” referring to the external seeds, others think it derives from the fact that the plant’s runners resemble straws. “Raspberry” derives from obsolete English word for the fruit “raspis.”
In the case of “strawberry,” etymologists are divided on the meaning of “straw.” Whereas some believe it derives from an obsolete sense of the word,“small piece of chaff,” referring to the external seeds, others think it derives from the fact that the plant’s runners resemble straws. “Raspberry” derives from obsolete English word for the fruit “raspis.”
The designations
“grapefruit” and “pineapple” highlight the fact that often
words are named for seemingly peculiar perceptions. The only
resemblance between a grapefruit and a grape is that both are grown
in clusters but this was enough for it to be called “grapefruit.”
An apple must have been deemed to be the generic fruit for a long
time because by the 13th
century, the term “pineapple” was applied in English to “a
pine cone.” The word was applied to the fruit in the mid 17th
century, because of its similarity in shape to a pine cone.
Another fruit that named
for its perceived appearance was the “coconut.” When 15th
century Portuguese explorers discovered this delicacy in the Indian
Ocean islands they fancied that the three little indentations at the
base of the large nut looked like eyes. Thinking that these three
“eyes” gave the nut the appearance of a grinning face, the
named it the “coconut,” coca
being the Portuguese word for a grimacing face.
These fruits, however,
have tepid etymologies compared to the avocado, which ultimately
derives from Nahuatl language of South America where it was given
the name ahuacatl,
“testicle” because of the similarity in shape. The Spanish
conquistadors absorbed this word originally as aguacate
but before long the word morphed into avocado,
the Spanish word for “advocate.”
In the name of
etymological propriety, one might be particularly resistant to eating
vanilla ice cream. In Elizabethan England, “vanilla” was thought
to have aphrodisiac properties stemming from the fact that the
sheath-like shape of the pod of the plant bore a resemblance to the
vagina. Nor were the English alone in this gynecological perception
as the word “vanilla” comes from the Spanish for “little
vagina.” Similarly, you might not want to know that vermicelli is a
form of the Italian word form worm, verme. It
is so named because when heated it expands and exudes what resembles
small worms.
Also
not particularly appetizing is the etymology of pumpernickel bread.
This coarse bread is the progeny of the
unholy union of the New High German, pumpern,
“to break
wind” and nickel,
“goblin” or “devil.” It was claimed that if you ate
pumpernickel you’d fart like the devil. The aubergine, on the
other hand, enjoys an anti-flatulent heritage. It began its life as
the Sanskrit vatinganah
that referred to the lack of gas it produces. Sanskrit vatinganah,
and went through a transconinental migration eventually to become the
Catalan alberginia,
and finally French aubergine.
Occasionally,
this process can also work in reverse; a non-food word can derive
from a food. If sausage represents one of your favourite foods, it
behooves me to relate that your bowels are etymologically “little
sausages.” The word comes from the Latin botellus,
which meant “intestine” or “little sausage.” It is said that
the Romans used the same word for intestine as sausage because
soldiers noticed a distinct resemblance of the slashed stomachs of
their slain comrades to sausages.
Bon
appetit.
Howard
Richler's next book From Gay (Happy) to
Gay (Homosexual) and other mysterious semantic shifts
will be published by Ronsdale Press in 2013.
hrichler@gmail.com
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