88 replies to this topic

[arnab]

been meaning to start this thread for a while. basically, we tend to take the names of dishes for granted. yes, some are self-explanatory if you speak the languages (rosho-gulla/ras-gulla=ball of syrup) but sometimes not even if you do. i'm going to list some names of dishes and ingredients that i like and use but don't really know the meaning of the name of. please add answers and questions of your own. note: i'm not asking what these things are--only what their names mean and ideally what they derive from

biryani
paratha/porotta
sambhar
dosa
pakoda
masala
dalchini

i have lots more but let's start with these.

[Mahmud]

Just don't let Moazzam near this thread. I'm sure he could come up with quite an imaginative etymology.

[arnab]

yes, must make this forum "read only" for moazzam.

[anil]

Letting non-linguists and structural anthropologists at it is more fraught with peril  

[gautam]

dalchini < daru chini ? --> daru =tree;  chini= from china; i.e. from the Himalayan mountains, or foreign lands of the East

cinnamomun obtusifolium/cassia/tamala --plentiful in the Garhwal Himalayas; source of cassia bark, tejpatta=usual 'cinnamon' of northern India

Extrapolated to all cinnamon, including c. zeylanicum?

[Rushina]

Nothing to contribute at the moment but this looks like it will be an interesting thread...

Rushina

[armagod]

Here are a few etymologies, with links to IE and Semitic roots:

masala: http://www.bartleby....8/G0039850.html
biryani: http://www.bartleby....3/B0280300.html
sambhar: http://www.bartleby....7/S0053700.html (wasn't there a thread on this?)


No luck when it comes to the others.

[Rumali Roti]

Quote

Brussel sprouts have nothing to do with Brussels. The French ABHOR french fries and import french beans from Portugal. Etc.

(1) What we refer to as “French beans” are called so because of the style in which we most commonly serve them (a la Francaise).  The French call them “haricots verts” (green beans).  

(2) Choux Bruxelles (“Brussels cabbages”) are believed to have first been cultivated and eaten near Brussels three or four hundred years ago.  Sprouts

(3) Although potatoes came to Europe (and every where else) via South America, they are reputed to have first been cooked in hot oil by French chemist, Antoine August Parmentier, who brought them home from Germany.
Spuds

While the French don't eat fries in the same quantity as Americans do, they are not unpopular on French restaurant menus (and at Gare du nord)  

There's some truth in advertising here.

Edited by roshna, 07 February 2005 - 11:21 PM.

[vAtraT]

I'm humbled -- umbled, even -- mon cher.

Unrelatedly, french beans (haricots verts) are called abichuela verdes in espanol.  And they're called pharasbI in marAThI.  Note the cute bastardization of FrenchBeans.

French Beans -> pharasbI
English -> ingraj (angrej in hindI)
Dutch -> valandej
French -> phirangI (though, later, all foreign sAhibs came to be called phirangI)

[Rumali Roti]

[QUOTE]Note the cute bastardization of FrenchBeans.

French Beans -> pharasbI[QUOTE]

I love it.  Note also, "Brinjal" (Indian English) and "RingNa" (Gujarati) from the Portuguese "beringela."  
Our street fruit seller used to call out "Storybaaaay" for "Strawberries" during the ten or so days in the cool months that he sold these.

Edited by roshna, 08 February 2005 - 05:36 AM.

[samir]

roshna, on Feb 8 2005, 05:18 AM, said:

I love it.  Note also, "Brinjal" (Indian English) and "RingNa" (Gujarati) from the Portuguese "beringela." 

But didn't beringela itself come from the Indian root? According to the Hobson-Jobson, "...It looks as if the Skt. word were the original of all. The H. baingan again seems to have been modified from the P. badingan, [or, as Platte asserts, direct from Skt. vanga, vangana, `the plant of Bengal,'] and baingan also through the Ar. to have been the parent of the Span. berengena, and so of all the other European names except the English `egg-plant'. ..."

Samir

[Sue Darlow]

I think I have worked out why Jerusalem artichokes are called thus -

Girasole (pronounced jeera-soh-lay) = sunflower in Italian, and the flower of the plant resembles a sunflower.

The flavour resembles an artichoke.

The Italian word for them is 'topinambur'!

Sue

[Rumali Roti]

Quote

But didn't beringela itself come from the Indian root?

Samir, you're right--the root is Sanskrit.  However, H-J says "The word in the form brinjaul is from the Portuguese . . . probably there is no word of the kind which has undergone such extraordinary variety of midifcations, whilst retaining the same meaning, as this."  It appears that the original word in Sanskrit was bhantaki, and mutated wildly into other languages.    

By the way, I don't see how the British and French term for it ("aubergine"), is derived from the Sanskrit root.  "Aubergine" sounds to me as though it might have decended from another parent altogether.

Sue, what's the origin of 'topinambur'?  Do you know?

Edited by roshna, 08 February 2005 - 07:07 PM.

[armagod]

Sue Darlow, on Feb 8 2005, 02:52 PM, said:

Girasole (pronounced jeera-soh-lay) = sunflower in Italian, and the flower of the plant resembles a sunflower.

gira = turn, sole = sun. How literal!

[Sue Darlow]

Quote

Aubergine, too, is etymologically unrelated. Auberge means "inn" in French. Was there a tradition of serving baingan bhartA at DhAbAs in the French countryside a few centuries ago??? 

Indeed, much much earlier the Aryans could have introduced the custom before returning to their motherland...  

Sue

[seajay]

This is where I came in (almost) on Another Listserv (Sasialit) years ago.  Much looking up in H-J & back & forthing -- but here's the Shorter OED scoop on derivation -- and I was right in my recall that the Arabic "Al" got in between the original Skt to make Aubergine:

Fr. Catalonian alberginia, fr. Arabic al-badinjan, fr. Persian badingan, fr. Skt vatingana.  

Sorry I can't insert the diacritical dots & all, but it doesn't have anything to do with auberge -- which comes from the Provencal alberga ,  Nice try though

cj

[vAtraT]

In matters of etymology, it's best not to kid.  I was only kidding about "baingan bhartA in the countryside".

The etymologies you all provided, starting with sanskr.t kukkuTa, pil and vaTingaNa make sense.  Two questions, though:

- What does/did pil mean in sanskr.t?  I've never come across it.

- vaTingaNa / vangaNa is identified in one of the cited etymologies as "veggie from Bengal (vanga)" while in another as "one that cures wind (flatulence?)".  You can't have it both ways.  Besides "gaNa" means "group", "congregation", etc., in sanskr.t.  Don't know what vaTi means.

[gingerly]

Quote

NUNCATIES, s. Rich cakes made by the Mahommedans in W. India chiefly imported into Bombay from Surat. [There is a Pers. word, nankhatai, ‘bread of Cathay or China,’ with which this word has been connected. But Mr. Weir, Collector of Surat, writes that it is really nankhatai, Pers. nan, ‘bread,’ and Mahr. khat, shat, ‘six’ ; meaning a special kind of cake composed of six ingredients—wheat-flour, eggs, sugar, butter or ghee, leaven produced from toddy or grain, and almonds.]

[Sue Darlow]

I always wondered why brinjals were called 'eggplant', having only seen the large, or long, purple ones.  Then more recently, I came across ones like these - the small white ones - where some are about the size of large hen's eggs, and I understand!   :D



Sue

[Rumali Roti]

Wow!  This is a new sight for me.  

Do you happen to know how white eggplant is grown?  White asparagus is white because its sown so deep in the soil as to be totally deprived of sunlight (no cholorophyll action = no coloring).  The difference in taste from green asparagus is remarkable (more mild and buttery than green asparagus).  

Does white baigan taste any different from the more common purple variety?

[armagod]

The white ones are definitiely available in many markets in India, my folks get them all the time.

I don't believe it's grown any differently from the regular purple ones. The whiteness is almost certainly not due to a lack of sunlight,: these are fruit, not stems or leaves.

[vAtraT]

I'll be damned!  White brinjal!!  No wonder someone decided to call it egg plant.  Do you suppose, if I suddenly began to call cauliflower something like "albino broccoli", it'll catch on?  Hundreds of years hence, might people parse "al-bino-broc-coli" on Web sites just like this one and wonder if it is etymologically related to "gobi" (vegetable grown in the desert) or "collie flower" (vegetable resembling shepherd dogs)??

[seajay]

vAtraT, on Feb 15 2005, 12:08 PM, said:

I'll be damned!  White brinjal!!  No wonder someone decided to call it egg plant.

And no doubt available at an upscale or farmers' market near you some summer day.  Rarely, but sometimes, even makes it up here even further north on the left coast.  Think I have sometimes seen it in East Asian NON-organic markets, too.

cj

[arnab]

just when i thought there was no way for this vile tumour to get any more disgusting here comes this excrescence from the vegetable garden of dr. moreau.

[Rumali Roti]

Quote

"collie flower" (vegetable resembling shepherd dogs)

"Cauliflower" is from Italian cavoli fiori to mean "flowered cabbage," but "albino broccoli" sounds more accurate to me.  Way to go, VaTraT!

[vAtraT]

arnab: Do you really not like egg plant?  Not like a good baingan bhartA??  And stuffed baingan???  I'm quite crestfallen.  Really!

Roshna: No, no, it's vAtraT, not VaTraT.  It means "a largely harmless mixture of silly and salacious" in a tongue spoken by 70 million speakers all over Maharashtra and its diaspora. :D

[Rumali Roti]

Quote

No, no, it's vAtraT, not VaTraT.

Arre vot re, vAtrat!  I keep writing your name wrong only.   (If it's of any consolation, I think I say it correctly.)

[arnab]

roshna, on Feb 15 2005, 03:53 PM, said:

Quote

No, no, it's vAtraT, not VaTraT.

Arre vot re, vAtrat!  I keep writing your name wrong only.   (If it's of any consolation, I think I say it correctly.)

as long as you don't pronounce it "what rot!"

[vAtraT]

Quote

Quote

(roshna @ Feb 15 2005, 03:53 PM)

Quote

No, no, it's vAtraT, not VaTraT.

Arre vot re, vAtrat! I keep writing your name wrong only.  (If it's of any consolation, I think I say it correctly.)

as long as you don't pronounce it "what rot!"

(1) I admit I've become anal about all this.

(2) Roshna, you spelled it "incorrectly" again ("vAtrat").  The capital and the small "t" have different sounds.  But, yeah, if you're pronouncing it correctly, that's the main thang.

(3) arnab: Yeah, "What rot!" would be derisive.  So would, as I suspected, in my anal haze, Roshna was pronouncing it -- "Vat Rat".  I mean, I like to drink a li'l beet, but I no scamper around in no barrell, you know?

[ajit]

vAtraT bhau, are you familiar with a contemporary poetry form called a 'vAtraTikA' ? not to mixed up with vAtraT TikA. (or even 'vA trATikA!')

Anyhow, enough of my vaTvaT.