Although it is now the name of a fragrant mixture of flower petals used to perfume a room or a closet, potpourri was originally a dish of many meats stewed together but then removed and served separately. The name of this dish is French for rotten pot, the French pourri deriving from the same Latin source as the English putrid. It was not the French, however, who originally gave the dish this bizarre name, since potpourri is a direct translation of the Spanish olla podrida, also meaning rotten pot. The Spanish called this stew rotten not because it tasted badly, but because the meats it contained were cooked until they fell off the bone\u2014in other words, the dish was rotten in so far as its ingredients were falling to pieces. The Spanish name for the dish, olla podrida, first appeared in English in the late sixteenth century; the French name appeared a decade later at the beginning of the seventeenth. A French dish similar to the pot-pourri in both name and substance is pot-au-feu, literally meaning pot in the fire. Long ago, such a fire-pot might be kept simmering over the hearth for days, scraps of meats and vegetables being added as they became available from other meals. A guest who dropped by unannounced would be served from this simmering pot and, depending on what had gone into it, would receive either a hearty thick stew or a thin, watery broth; such a meal was called pot luck and, after first appearing in English in the late sixteenth century, came to be applied to any meal in which the quality of the fare was determined by chance.<\/p>\n
A fragrant blend of herbs, spices and oils used to perfume the house.<\/p>\n
A concoction of diverse meats and savory spices, blended together in a rich, hearty broth; or, any amalgamation of comestibles mingled with an assortment of flavorful elements.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although it is now the name of a fragrant mixture of flower petals used to perfume a room or a closet, potpourri was originally a dish of many meats stewed together but then removed and served separately. The name of this dish is French for rotten pot, the French pourri deriving from the same Latin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-p"],"yoast_head":"\n