Category: A
-
Haddock
The name of this fish, once commonly eaten for breakfast in Britain, is first recorded in English in the early fourteenth century. Although its origin is uncertain, it may have derived from the French word for the same species of fish, hadot. This word in turn may have developed from the French word adouber, meaning…
-
Gyro
A gyro is a sandwich made by roasting lamb, slicing it, and rolling it into a pita. The sandwich originated several decades ago at Greek lunch counters in the United States, and therefore derives its name, pronounced yheero, from Greek: guros, meaning a spiral or a turn, was anglicized as gyro and applied to the…
-
Azyme
The unleavened bread that Jews eat at Passover is called the azyme; in contrast, the leavened bread that members of the Greek Orthodox Church eat at communion is called the enzyme. The final syllable that these two words share derives from a Greek word meaning leaven, leaven being an ancient agent of fermentation. The two…
-
Avocado
Not only is the Nahuatl language, spoken by the Aztecs, the source of the words chili, chocolate, and chicle (the latter refers to a substance used to make chewing gum, such as Chiclets), it also gave English the word avocado, the fruit from which guacamole is made. Perhaps in an attempt to impress or frighten…
-
Asparagus
The word asparagus derives from two Greek words: ana, meaning up, and spargan, meaning to swell, a reference to the prominent shoots of the plant that “swell up” as it grows. Oddly, the word was used in English at the beginning of the eleventh century but then vanished until the middle of the sixteenth century,…
-
Artichoke
Anyone who has fondled her way through a boiled, buttered artichoke knows that this vegetable is made up of an edible, fleshy base called the heart and an inedible, hairy core called the choke. In fact, most people suppose that the socalled heart and choke of the plant gave the artichoke its name. Actually, the…
-
Aquavit
The yellowish alcoholic spirit known as aquavit derived its name in the late nineteenth century from the Norwegian akavit, which in turn developed from the Latin aqua vitae, meaning water of life (whiskey likewise derives its name from a Gaelic phrase also meaning water of life). Another beverage—one spiced with cloves, ginger, cardamom, and mace—has…
-
Apron
Back in the fourteenth century, the outer garment that cooks wore to shield their clothes from spatters and dribbles was called a napron. By the fifteenth century, however, the n at the beginning of the word had shifted over to the indefinite article that often preceded the word: that is, a napron became an apron…
-
Apple-pie order
A proper chef always keeps her kitchen in apple-pie order: spoons and forks do not fraternize wildly in the cutlery drawer, lids do not wander from their containers, salt shakers do not plummet into the crevice between oven and wall. Such a compulsion for culinary organization is known as apple-pie order, an idiom that may…
-
Apple
Neither of the two words that the ancient Romans had for apple—malum and pomum—are the source of the English name of this fruit. Instead, apple derives from a Germanic source, one likely related to Avella, the name of a famous fruit-growing region in Italy; however, whether the region was named after the fruit, or the…