(or zaʾatar or zahtar), the Arabic name for wild THYME, commonly denotes a mixture of that herb with SUMAC, usually but not always with toasted SESAME seeds. Another ingredient can be the ground seeds of Pistacia terebinthus, a relation of MASTIC.
In its simplest form zaatar is used to garnish labneh (see YOGHURT); and it is used throughout the Near East to flavour fried eggs.
The bread called manaʾeesh bil-zaʾtar is popular in the Lebanon, especially for breakfast; the dough is spread with a mixture of zaatar mixed with some olive oil before being baked.
Tucker and Maciarello (1994) have drawn attention to the occurrence of zaatar as part of the names of several kinds of HYSSOP, thus:
is the Anglicized (and internationally current) form of the Italian word which is correctly spelled zabaione and which became at the beginning of the 19th century sabayon in French. It denotes one of the most luxurious of dishes of the CAUDLE type, and is generally supposed to have been invented in the early 16th century at the Florentine court of the Medici. Egg yolks, Marsala wine, and sugar are beaten vigorously in a double boiler until thick and foamy. There are later versions with cream, including a frozen one.
Lesley Chamberlain (1983) remarks that a version of zabaglione was popular among the Russian aristocracy in the late 19th century under the strange name of gogol’ mogol’. This was at the height of Russian-French imperial cuisine, so gogol’ mogol’ presumably arrived in St Petersburg with a French chef who was accustomed to making sabayon.
In France the name sabayon is also applied to a sauce, which belongs with the sauce called MOUSSELINE and is often made with champagne, for serving with fish or crustaceans.
are perhaps the most distinctive feature of a Russian meal. The word, meaning ‘little bites’, originally referred to the sweet delicacies and pies served after a main meal. Now it has two meanings: either something relatively light served before a meal, usually with vodka, or by extension a snack, often eaten in a zakusochnaya—a stand-up bar.
The origin of zakuski is generally attributed to an enlightened 18th-century tsar, Peter the Great. As Lesley Chamberlain (1983) explains:
They came from Peter’s fact-finding tours of the civilized world west of Russia and his conquests to the North. He began his Grand European tour in the Baltic port of Riga, and travelled west across what is now Northern Poland, through Berlin, thence to Holland and England. His long war with the Swedes gave him control of the Baltic and a brief hold on Finland. Gastronomically speaking, this Swedish-dominated world was rich in salted and pickled fish, apples, potatoes, pickled cucumbers, cheese and dairy products, sausage and other preserved meats and dark rye bread. These preparations still characterize the attractive cold buffet that the typical zakuski table is today.
Zakuski may be cold or hot or both. Cold ones will include, when possible, CAVIAR as well as the items indicated above. Hot ones are always items which are simple to serve and eat; pirozhki (see PIROG) are favourites.
In the 19th century, zakuski would be laid out very formally on a table, often in a room set aside especially for this purpose and adjoining the dining room. There is one such room in Pushkin’s flat in Leningrad. The company would assemble round this table, propose toasts, clink glasses, down the first glass of vodka in a gulp, and quickly follow it with a bite of herring or a caviar canapé. This is an excellent sequence; the vodka cleanses the palate, leaving it fully prepared and stimulated for the taste of whatever follows. The company would then adjourn to the dining room, where they would embark on the meal proper.
Chekhov once wrote that ‘the very best zakuska, if you would like to know, is the herring’. The various kinds of cured herring are also one of the simplest zakuski. It is fortunate that simplicity sometimes coincides with excellence. During the period of the Soviet Union, virtually all Russians had to settle for simple zakuski. Apart from anything else, they did not have the space for something grander. They would sit down at table straight away, in a room which usually acts as bedroom, living room, dining room, and study. The zakuski would simply be served as the first course. However, the tradition of zakuski lives on and is indeed inextinguishable.
is an unconventional ‘sausage’, a speciality of Modena in the Emilia-Romana region of Italy. The skin is not a sausage casing of the usual sort, but a boned pig’s trotter; the name ‘zampone’ literally means ‘great paw’. A spiced mixture of pork and pork offal is used for the filling, and it is then subjected to a lengthy soaking and simmering, and served sliced with other boiled meats.
also known as pike-perch (because thought to display some characteristics of both the PIKE and the PERCH), Sander lucioperca, a large and carnivorous freshwater fish of C. and E. Europe, whose range has been extended westwards, even to E. Anglia in England, by introduction. A fully grown pike-perch may measure up to 1 m (40″) and will eat other fish voraciously; indeed, it has been praised as an instrument for the conversion of inedible fish into edible (itself). Its favoured habitats are large lakes or slow-moving rivers.
Appreciation of this species as food is most apparent in E. Europe, including Russia; elsewhere it has tended to be valued more for the ‘sport’ which it affords to anglers.
any of several African mammals of the horse family, Equidae, which bear on their white hides the distinctive black stripes which have given the word ‘zebra’ wide currency in the English language.
The so-called Grévy’s zebra, Equus grevyi, is the largest of these; adapted to living in a semi-desert or desert environment, it is found from N. Kenya to Ethiopia and Somalia. However, the common zebra of southern and eastern Africa, E. burchelli, is, as one would expect, the most common. Standing 1.25 m (50″) high at the shoulder, it is often seen with other animals on the plains. An adaptable species (with several subspecies, but not as many as there were, for some have been exterminated), it may also be found in wooded terrain. An African name for it is bontkwagga.
Leipoldt (1976), speaking from S. African experience of eating many game animals, praises the zebra as ‘a clean grass feeder’ whose meat is outstandingly good:
Zebra flesh … I should without hesitation deem the tenderest, most savoury, and best flavoured of all game meat, especially when the animal is young. A zebra fillet, portioned into tournedos, is incomparably the finest meat that is obtainable in a Bushveld camp.
Bos indicus, the hump-backed CATTLE of Africa and Asia, are important in those continents in various roles. They differ morphologically from European cattle in various respects besides the characteristic hump which is usually present, and are generally better adapted to a tropical environment. Juliet Clutton-Brock (1981) comments:
There is no general agreement on whether zebu cattle were first developed in south western Asia or on the peninsula of India but there is little doubt that the many breeds of humped cattle in Africa at the present day are of secondary origin and were first introduced from India or the Middle East.
Humped cattle are depicted on cylinder seals from the ancient civilizations of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley which are dated 2500–1500 BC, whilst in southern Iraq on Sumerian and Babylonian sites they are also depicted from about the same period.
Curcuma zedoaria, a perennial herb of NE India and SE Asia whose dried rhizome is yellow and provides a spice which has some resemblance to GINGER. It is musky and pungent, and was used in Europe, along with its relation GALANGAL, in medieval times. In later centuries, however, both galangal and zedoary dropped out of sight in European kitchens, although continuing to be used by apothecaries.
The rhizomes of zedoary are rich in starch, which is extracted from them in India as shoti starch. This resembles ARROWROOT, is sold as a powder in cans, and is used for thickening purposes.
The leaves are said to have a flavour like LEMON GRASS, and are used as a flavouring for fish and other foods in Java. The hearts of the young shoots are eaten.
From the descriptions given by Ochse (1981) it seems that the general pattern, at least in Indonesia, for use of this herb and subspecies or varieties is for the hearts of young shoots and the young tops of rhizomes (and sometimes the inflorescences) to be eaten, as a cooked vegetable or in salads; that there are various medicinal uses; but that there is little or no use for flavouring purposes.
the Italian and American name for what the French and many English-speaking people call courgettes, any of several varieties of the SQUASH Cucurbita pepo which have been developed for this purpose and are still relatively small (around 8–10 cm/3–4″) when mature, or small young specimens of other varieties of the same species which belong to the VEGETABLE MARROW group and would grow much larger if left alone.
This is one of the most attractive and delicious of the CUCURBIT vegetable fruits, but only became prominent in the 20th century. In the 1920s, when the learned Dr Leclerc was writing, the French still referred to courgettes d’Italie, and it seems clear that it was the Italians who first marketed vegetable marrows in a small size; and that it is therefore appropriate to choose their name zucchini rather than the French name courgettes as the adopted English name. The subsequent development of purpose-bred varieties intended to be nothing but zucchini and never growing much larger, has been conducted in several countries.
The 19th-century French author Vilmorin-Andrieux (1883, English edn) gave an illustration of the elongated variety of marrow grown in Italy (courge d’Italie), and commented that:
All through Italy, where this Gourd is very commonly grown, the fruit is eaten quite young, when it is hardly the size of a small Cucumber, sometimes even before the flower has opened, when the ovary, which is scarcely as long or as thick as the finger, is gathered for use. The plants, which are thus deprived of their undeveloped fruits, continue to flower for several months most profusely, each producing a great number of young Gourds, which, gathered in that state, are exceedingly tender and delicately flavoured.
The English translator added, more than half a century before the hour of the zucchini struck: ‘This should be tried in England.’ Vilmorin, incidentally, had given the Italian name as cocozello di Napoli.
That there is no true English name reflects the fact that, although courgettes were mentioned (in italic, to show that the word was a foreign one) in a few English recipe books of the 1930s, they only became popular in England after Elizabeth DAVID in the 1950s and 1960s had introduced them (not in italic) to readers of her books; and that as zucchini they had a similarly late arrival in the USA, where Italian immigrants made the introduction.
Zucchini may be poached; or blanched, stuffed, and baked; or cut into small sticks and very slowly and gently cooked with garlic in olive oil (exceptionally good) or deep fried. Courgettes or zucchini lightly cooked in butter are also a delicate dish. Their mild flavour can be complemented with herbs, parsley, chives, basil, etc.
The Italians and French took a lead, now followed in restaurants all over the world, in stuffing and deep-frying courgette flowers. Some varieties of zucchini are specially grown to be of miniature size when they bear flowers, the body of the fruit then being little more than a handle for the bloom.
the name of an Italian dessert which is related in composition (sponge cake/biscuits, liqueur, custard and/or cream, optional topping/decoration), although probably not in ancestry, to the English TRIFLE. At first glance the name would seem to mean ‘English soup’. In fact, zuppa and the French term soupe and the English word ‘sop’ referred in medieval times to pieces of bread set to soak in broth. Then with the passage of time the mixture of bread and broth took on the name (which now became ‘soup’ in English). Eventually the primary meaning of the terms in the three languages became soup, as the word is now used, whether or not pieces of bread are present. Yet the old meaning lingered on in certain expressions, including Italian use of zuppa for a sweet confection with a cake-like or biscuit basis. There are quite a few of these confections, the inglese version being only one.
Explanations of inglese vary. An attractive one is that of Fernanda Gosetti (1993), which reads thus in translation:
This is a classic dessert of Siena, known there as zuppa del duca and at Florence as zuppa inglese. One of my dearest Sienese friends told me that the dessert had a very ancient origin. It was served in 1552 on the occasion of a banquet offered by the Duke of Correggio (whence the name del duca) who had been invited to go to Siena by Cosimo de Medici to help the Sienese by finding a peaceful solution to a dispute between them and the Spaniards. After the banquet, the Duke was convinced that the Sienese had no need of help. Once back in Florence, the Duke introduced the dessert to the Medici court, where it found enormous favour, expecially among the English, who at that time were numerous in Florence; so much so that the dessert became known under the name zuppa degli inglesi, or more simply, zuppa inglese.
If this explanation is correct, it seems that the use of the name zuppa inglese in its familiar sense must have supplanted, in the 16th century, an earlier meaning. Sabban and Serventi (1995), to whom much of the information presented here is due, point out that Cristoforo di Messisbugo (1557) gave a recipe entitled A fare una suppa magra inglese which was for something rather different; it involved making a bouillon of parsley roots, to be bound with egg yolk and verjuice and poured over slices of bread, the whole being served with a powdering of sugar and cinnamon. The process whereby the name came to have its present meaning has yet to be traced. But it does seem that zuppa inglese had its origin in Italy and should not be regarded as a derivative of English trifle.
The dictionary of Piedmontese food terms by Doglio (1995) claims that zuppa inglese is more or less the exclusive property of Piedmont. However, this claim is incompatible with a likely origin in Tuscany and with information about the spread of zuppa inglese southwards, e.g. to Naples, where it would often have a topping of meringue (echoed in Malta, where a closely similar dessert, disguised under the name ‘soufflé’, exists and has such a topping).
The alcoholic ingredient for the dessert would normally be rum and/or the liqueur called Alkermes, which imparts a red colour (see KERMES).