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Food Name Origins
Betcha didn't know these:
Baker's Dozen The practice of giving a customer thirteen items when
twelve were ordered originated in England where penalties were levied
for short-weighting a customer. Baker's scales were often not accurate
so the baker gave an extra loaf or roll to make sure he didn't break the
law , and also to encourage the customer to continue patronizing his
shop. In Egypt, baker's caught short-weighing their customers were
nailed to the door of the shop by their ears.
Banana is a Portuguese word for a fruit know throughout history. The
original food for thought, its botanical name is musa sapientum, "the
man who thinks", said to come from the legend of wise men who sat under
the shade of the tree, eating bananas. The banana is an herb, not a
tree.
Boborygmology is the study of stomach rumblings.
Chowder comes from the practice of French fishermen on the coast of Brittany of throwing some of their daily catch into a community pot,
a chaudiere, so all could eat.
Coleslaw is a combination of two Dutch words: koolsa from cabbage and sla, from salad.
Margarine was originally made from hog fat, which resembled the color and sheen of pearls. In Spanish, margarita, and in French, margeurite, mean pearl.
Onion is a doublet of the word union---meaning both words are similar but entered into the language through different routes. The word was created by adding the onion-shaped letter o to the word union, yielding the new spelling ounion. The letter u was later dropped to create the modern spelling. A union is something that is indivisible and which, if taken apart, is destroyed in the process, like an onion. The original root of the word is the Latin un, meaning "the number one", the only number that is not further divisible.
Squash sounds like what you do with it after you bake it. The word was a compromise by the early settlers who encountered what the Algonquin Indians called isquonterquashes in 1634. The Indian word means "something you eat raw". The Pilgrims preferred to cook it, and shortened its name.
Vinegar is simply a description of a versatile liquid. It means "sour" or "rough wine"; vin agre in Old French.
From the Secret Life of Food by Martin Elkort
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