Chapter 13

Eating out

If you are going out to eat, you could choose to go to an Italian restaurant and enjoy the delights of pizza and pasta. The word pizza is of uncertain origin; it was used in Latin to refer to a flat bread topped with cheese and is perhaps related to the Germanic word bizzo ‘bite, cake’. Less likely is the suggestion that it is connected to the Greek plakous ‘flat cake’, which is the origin of placenta. The margherita pizza is named for Margherita Teresa Giovanna of Savoy, who was Queen of Italy from 1878 to 1900. It was designed in 1889 by a Neapolitan pizza-maker named Raffaele Esposito in celebration of a visit by the Queen. The toppings of cheese, tomato, and basil were chosen to represent the white, red, and green of the Italian flag. For additional toppings you could choose from funghi ‘mushrooms’, prosciutto ‘cured ham’ (from Latin exsuctus ‘sucked out’—referring to the drying process), or pepperoni, a sausage seasoned with peppers.

The word pasta is from an Italian word meaning ‘paste’, which goes back to Greek pastai ‘barley porridge’; this is the same root that lies behind the English words pasty, paste, patty, pastel, and pate. The Italian word pasticcio, referring to a pie consisting of a mixture of pasta and meat, was borrowed into English to refer to a musical or written work featuring contributions by a variety of composers or writers. From this developed the sense of a work deliberately created in order to imitate the style of another, and subsequently the humorous exaggeration or parody of an artist with which the word’s modern descendant, pastiche, is associated. Pasta cooked so that it is still firm when bitten is termed al dente, literally ‘to the tooth’.

Pasta

The various types of pasta usually take their names from their appearance. Fusilli derives from a regional word meaning ‘little spindles’, referring to their twisting or spiral shape. Conchiglie means ‘conch shells’, again referencing their shape; the Latin concha ‘bivalve shell’ that lies behind this word is also the root of English conch, now used for a wider variety of mollusc shells. Spaghetti is the diminutive of spago ‘string’, hence ‘little strings’, while vermicelli means ‘little worms’, from Latin vermis ‘worm’—also the root of vermin. Cannelloni means ‘large stalks’, tagliatelle, pasta cut into ribbons, is from tagliare ‘to cut’, while fettuccine means ‘little ribbons’. Penne pasta, in the form of hollow tubes with a diagonal cut at each end, is so called because of its resemblance to a feather or a quill pen. Farfalle, bow-shaped pieces of pasta, take their name from the Italian word for a butterfly or a bow tie—farfalla. Pappardelle, pasta shaped as flat, broad ribbons, is from Italian pappare ‘to eat hungrily’.

Macaroni is from the Greek makaria ‘food made from barley’. In the eighteenth century it came to be used of a dandy or a fop: a young man who, having travelled Europe, returned arrayed in extravagant European fashions of dress—men like Yankee Doodle of the famous song, who ‘put a feather in his cap and called it Macaroni’. The connection between macaroni and a fop appears to be the Macaronic Club, a gentlemen’s dining club specializing in foreign dishes. Drawing on the sense of a jumble or medley, macaronic came to be applied to a burlesque verse form in which Latin endings and structures were mixed with a vernacular language.

The flat sheets of pasta called lasagne take their name from the Latin lasanum ‘chamber pot’, presumably with reference to the vessel in which the dish was traditionally cooked. Many dishes have acquired their names in such a manner; the casserole gets its title from the French casse ‘spoon-like container’. The Spanish paella goes back to the Latin patella ‘small dish’—a reference to the distinctive shallow container in which the mixture of rice, chicken, seafood, and vegetables is cooked. This word is also the source of the medical term for the kneecap, so called because it too resembles a small dish. In the case of Spanish tapas, it is the manner in which they are served rather than cooked that gives them their name. Tapas means ‘lids’, referring to the way that these small dishes of savoury nibbles offered in bars (or bodegas) were originally served on a small dish balanced on the top of a glass.

Italian pasta dishes are typically served with a sauce; pasta alla carbonara, for example, means in the carbonara style (alla ‘in the style of’). Carbonara itself is of uncertain etymology; it may be the name of a restaurant that originally served the dish, or a regional word for a charcoal burner, carbonaro, from Latin carbo ‘charcoal’—the source of English carbon. While bolognese sauce can be linked straightforwardly with the northern Italian city of Bologna, the spicy sauce known as arrabbiata gets its name from the verb arrabbiare ‘to get angry’ or ‘to catch rabies’, from Latin rabbia—the source of the English words rabies and rage. The tomato sauce flavoured with olives, capers, and anchovies known as puttanesca is from the Italian puttana ‘prostitute’. The reason behind this name is unclear, although one suggestion is that it was invented by prostitutes because it could be prepared quickly between visiting clients. The thin strips of meat known as carpaccio are named for a Venetian painter called Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525), who used a red pigment that resembled raw meat. The dish itself was first devised in Venice in the 1960s, when Carpaccio’s work was on exhibition at the Doge’s Palace.

Another popular option for dining out is the Indian restaurant, or curry house, where you can enjoy the delicious tastes and aromas (from Greek aroma ‘spice’) of Asian cookery. English curry is from the Tamil kari, the name given to a spicy sauce. While treating someone to an Indian meal is certain to put you in their good books, this is not the origin of the phrase currying favour. This idiom derives from the Old French correier ‘to prepare, arrange’, which was originally used to refer to a process of grooming using a comb, but which later took on the sense of using flattery to win favour. The phrase to curry favour was originally currying favel—favel being a stock name for a pale brown (or fallow) horse; from describing someone grooming a horse, the phrase came to refer to someone employing flattery to attempt to win personal advantage.

Curry

Perhaps the easiest curry name to explain is that of the hot sauce known as the madras, which is named after the Eastern seaport of Madras, known today as Chennai. Of less exotic origins is the balti, which was invented in Birmingham in the 1980s. But despite its local and recent origins, the origin of its name remains unclear. Since the dish is typically served in a round-bottomed metal pan it is often thought to derive from the Hindi word ba˙lṭī ’bucket’, but there is no evidence of the Hindi word being used to describe the curry dish. Another possible source is the Panjabi word ba˙ṭṭī, used of a brass dish of similar proportions, but how this word could have changed to balti is not clear. Tandoori is used of meat cooked in a clay oven in northern India or Pakistan, from Urdu tandūr ‘oven’, while biryani is from a Hindi word meaning ‘fried’ or ‘roasted’. The rogan josh gets its name from the Urdu words for oil and stew—somehow ‘oily stew’ doesn’t sound quite as appetizing.

Curries whose names reflect their core ingredients include the dopiaza—from Urdu dopiyāza, meaning ‘two onions’, since this ingredient is added twice during the cooking process. The spicy sauce known as the vindaloo gets its name from the Portuguese words for its major ingredients: vinho ‘wine’ and alho ‘garlic’. Less helpful in identifying the constituent ingredients is the term jalfrezi, which is from a Bengali word simply meaning ‘spicy food’. Similarly vague is the korma, from Turkish kavurma ‘cooked meat’; even less specific is the masala, which is from the Urdu word maṣālā, meaning ‘ingredients’. The pasanda gets its name from the Persian word pasand, meaning ‘excellent’, which does at least suggest that—whatever it may contain—it should at least taste nice. Curry is often eaten with rice; originating in the Greek oruza, this word entered English from Old French ris. The French word is a borrowing of the Italian riso, from which we get risotto. Naan bread is something of a tautology—since naan is the Urdu word for ‘bread’. An essential accompaniment is the poppadom, a borrowing of the Tamil word pappatam; but, while it features on all Indian menus, there is little agreement on how the word should be spelled—poppadum, popadom, popadum, and even puppadom all make regular appearances.

Whatever you decide to eat, you will undoubtedly wish to finish off with something sweet. But, once you know that the word pudding is from Anglo-Norman bodeyn ‘sausage’, which in turn appears to derive from Latin botellus ‘small intestine’, you may find yourself suddenly feeling unexpectedly full. The connection between the sweet desserts that we eat today and sausages is the bag or casing in which they were both cooked. The word pudding was originally used to refer to both sweet and savoury dishes cooked in this manner, as it still is with steak and kidney and Christmas puddings.

The word dessert derives from the French verb desservir, literally meaning ‘to de-serve’, i.e. ‘to clear the table’; it was initially used to describe a course comprising fruits and sweetmeats served after the table had been cleared. This usage continues today in Oxbridge colleges, much to the surprise of guests who, having consumed a pudding course, find themselves being invited to take dessert. Another term often used to refer to this course is sweet, but the fortunes of this word suffered at the hands of Nancy Mitford and the U and non-U debate—as captured in John Betjeman’s satirical poem How to Get On in Society (1951): ‘Is trifle sufficient for sweet?’ Branded the non-U equivalent of the correct term pudding, sweet lives on in some dialects, but is more usually heard with reference to children’s confectionery. Also of restricted currency but still in use are afters, and seconds—though the latter is more commonly used to refer to a second helping of any course. Technically speaking, therefore, one can have seconds of afters. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. If you’re wondering how the proof of anything can be located in a sweet dessert, the reason for your confusion is that our modern version of this proverb is a corruption of the original form, first recorded in 1605 as the proof of the pudding is in the eating. A further cause of uncertainty is that the word proof is being used in its older sense of ‘test’—preserved today in a proofreader who checks the test pages (or proof) of a book before publication. Confusion has been further encouraged by the tendency for people to use a shortened version of the proverb—the proof of the pudding. Since the word proof is today more commonly used to mean ‘evidence’, the phrase was reworded as if it implied that the evidence for some claim can be located in a pudding. The true explanation of this phrase is quite simple—especially for fans of the Great British Bake-Off TV Show—it doesn’t matter how fancy the decoration and presentation, the true test of a pudding is in how it tastes. Or, more generally, the success of something can only be judged by putting it to its intended use.

Puddings

Eponymous puddings include the pavlova, a dessert made of meringue, whipped cream, and fruit, named after the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (1881–1931). Despite its Russian associations, it was actually invented in Australia and New Zealand and named after the star following her 1926 tour of the Antipodes (referring to those living on the opposite side of the world—from Greek antipodes ‘having the feet opposite’). The tarte Tatin, a puff pastry filled with apple, takes its name from two sisters, Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin, who invented it at their French hotel.

The trifle, a sponge cake covered in custard, jelly, and cream, gets its name from a word originally adopted in English from Old French truffler ‘to mock, deceive’, and used to mean ‘a story designed to deceive’. The fool gets its name from the word for a simpleton; its origins lie in the Latin word for ‘bellows’, follis, which was later extended to refer to a ‘windbag’ or ‘idiot’. The use of this word to refer to the dessert was probably suggested by the related trifle. Another dessert whose name refers to the process of inflating is soufflé, a light sponge dish, from a French word meaning ‘blown’. Similarly, puff pastry (formerly puff paste) gets its name from the lightness of this flaky pastry being like a puff of wind.

The English favourite treacle tart goes back to Greek theriake, via the French word triacle. The Greek word referred to an antidote used to combat animal venom (from therion ‘wild beast’); its earliest senses in English refer to a medicine used against poisonous bites and other unpleasant infections and diseases. The use of treacle as an alternative to the more usual English translation balm in certain translations of the Bible, as in Jeremiah 8:22 ‘Is there no balm in Gilead?’, led to the coining of the nickname Treacle Bible. Traditionally treacle tart is eaten with custard. The word for this gloopy, yellow sauce, made of milk and eggs, was originally crustarde, a term which was used to denote an open pie containing meat or fruit with a thick sauce. The origins of crustarde are shared with modern English crust and refer to the dish’s hard casing; both words go back to Latin crusta ‘hard shell, rind’.

The pie, which may be either savoury or sweet, is from the same source as the second element of magpie. The connection between the avian pie and the edible variety seems to have been the similarity between the bird’s propensity to collect random objects and the way that a pie comprises a collection of varied ingredients. A pudding that originated as a savoury dish is blancmange—from French blanc ‘white’ and manger ‘to eat’—initially a dish of minced meat in a white sauce made of cream and eggs. The name of the French dessert croquembouche describes its texture rather than its appearance; originating in the French croque-en-bouche, the name means ‘that is crunched in the mouth’ (from croquer ‘to bite’ and bouche ‘mouth’). The Italian dessert known as panna cotta describes the method of production, as it derives from the Italian for ‘cooked cream’—which, unfortunately, is unlikely to turn into crème brûlée (French for ‘burned cream’) if you overcook it. Rather more inventive is tiramisu, from the Italian for ‘pick me up’; a similar idea lies behind the name of the veal dish saltimbocca, which literally means ‘leap into the mouth’. The prize for the most unpromising pudding name must surely go to tapioca, which is from the name used by the Tupi, a South American people, tipioca, from tipi ‘dregs’ and ok ‘squeeze out’.