The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu (39 page)

 
China dominated the world economy until the Industrial Revolution
: Frank (1998), 171–73.

Five: A Toast to Toast

 
Rakia is the generic name
: Although of course spelled and pronounced differently in each language.

 
The original meaning of the word
toast
:
OED
entry for
toast
.

 
“sinfull, and utterly unlawfull unto Christians”
: Prynne (1628).

 
toasts were made to the health of a lady
: Colquhoun (2007), 221.

 
A report from the time
:
Richard Steele,
The Tatler
31 (1709): 8:
“Then, said he, Why do you call live People Toasts? I answered, That was a new Name found out by the Wits to make a Lady have the same Effect as Burridge in the Glass when a Man is drinking.”

 
“A Beauty, whose Health is drank”
: Richard Steele,
The Tatler
71 (1709).

 
A Carol for a Wassail Bowl
:
image from page 67 in Henry Vizetelly,
Christmas with the Poets: A Collection of Songs, Carols, and Descriptive Verses
, 6th edition (London: Ward, Lock, & Tyler, 1872).

 
in the apple-growing west of England
: Robert Herrick’s 1648
Hesperides
has the line “Wassaile the Trees, that they may beare You many a Plum, and many a Peare.”

 
a piece of toast soaked in cider in the trees
: Brears (1993).

 
Wassail
: Recipe adapted from the always instructive Alton Brown and from Jenn Dowds, The Churchill, and Rosie Schaap, from
The New York Times
. December 12, 2012.

 
slices of toast soaked in wine, water, or broth, called
sops
:
Hieatt and Butler (1985), 215: sops were “generally toasted pieces of bread.”

 
one-pot stews called
pottages
:
Wilson (1993), 3–19.

 
“wel loved he by the morwe a sop in wyn”
: Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales
, “The Franklin’s Tale.”

 
Sowpes in galyngale
:
Recipe 133 in Hieatt and Butler (1985).

 
Soupes dorye
:
Austin (1964), 11.

 
the word
sop
, perhaps via its
:
OED
entry for
sop
.

 
come our words
supper
and
soup
:
OED
entry for
soup
and
supper
.

 
waes hael
(be healthy)
: See the
OED
entries for
wassail
,
hale
, and
healthy
.

 
in Paris at the fancy new “university”
: Although I’m cheating here a bit since the word “university” only became common to describe the University of Paris a few decades later around 1200. See Mozely (1963) and Longchamps (1960).

 
in this same Caucasian region of modern Georgia
: The hypothesis that wine was first developed in the Caucasus was first proposed by Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov. McGovern (2009), 19.

 
the “Noah hypothesis”
: For a summary of these arguments, see McGovern (2003; 2009).

 
“And the ark rested”
:
King James translation of Genesis 8 and 9.

 
as early as Homer
: Burkert (1985), 374, note 37: “The formula appears in the Illiad 9.177 and six times in the Odyssey.”

 
a libation from the first
krater
of wine
: Burkert (1985), 70–72.

 
The root *
g’heu
(
pour
)
: Benveniste (1969), 470–80.

 
A 2400 to 2600
bce
carving
: http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/me/s/shell_plaque.aspx.

 
Similar images of libations
: Matthews (1997).

 
A hymn to Ninkasi
: Civil (1964).

 
sheker similarly meant beer
: Homan (2004).

 
infused with antioxidant herbs
: McGovern et al. (2010); McGovern, Mirzoian, and Hall (2009).

 
the
evil eye
:
Dundes (1981), Foster (1972).

 
An alembic of the Middle Ages
: Figure from Louis Figuier,
Les merveilles de l’industrie. Volume 4: Industries agricoles et alimentaires
(Paris, France: Furne Jouvet, c. 1880).

 
sicera
, which he defined as beer, mead
: St. Jerome, Letter 52,
To Nepotian: Ep. 52, Ad Nepotianum de vita clericorum et monachorum
. http://www.synaxis.org/cf/volume29/ECF00005.htm.

 
in France the word
sicera
, now pronounced
sidre
:
OED
entry for
cider
.

 
the technology of distillation was perfected
: Wilson (2006).

 
Other descendants of the word ‘
araq
:
Arajhi
, a Turkic word for distilled liquor borrowed, presumably via Persian, from Arabic, is mentioned in Chinese documents as early as 1330. See Buell and Anderson (2010), 109, 115.

 
found on pottery from 7000 to 6600
BCE
:
McGovern (2009), 28–59.

Six: Who Are You Calling a Turkey?

 
“
introduces a full chorus of turkeys
”
:
Edgar Allan Poe,
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe in Eight Volumes. Vol. VI. Miscellaneous Essays, Marginalia, etc.
(Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1895), 162.

 
the species that Native Americans domesticated
: Thornton et al. (2012); Schorger (1966); Smith (2006), 8. A different species of wild turkey was independently domesticated by the ancient Pueblo peoples who built the cliff dwellings in the southern United States (Speller et al. 2010).

 
Cortés described the streets
: Schorger (1966), 12.

 
8000 turkeys were sold every five days
: Coe (1994), 96, quoting from Motolinía,
Memorales
, (Mexico City, 1903) 332.

 
Turkey in stews
: Image used by permission of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, ms. Med. Palat. 218, c. 312v. On concession of the Italian Ministry for Goods, Cultural Activities and Tourism. Further reproduction by any means is prohibited.

 
the Aztec feast in honor of a newborn child
: Sahagún (1957), 121–25.

 
turkey moles made with chile
: Sahagún (1954), 37; Barros (2004), 20.

 
1650 description of a Oaxacan turkey mole
: Barros (2004), 22.

 
recipes for guisos and moles in early Mexican manuscripts
: Monteagudo (2004), Laudan and Pilcher (1999).

 
an 1817 cookbook, whose recipe for mole de guajolote
: The 1817 recipe appears in the anonymous
Libro de Cocina de la Gesta de Independencia:
Monteagudo (2002), 58. See also Coe and Coe (1996), 214–16, and Monteagudo (2004), 34.

 
Modern recipes are even more spectacular
: Berdan and Anawalt (1997), 169.

 
the role of nuns in convents
: Monteagudo (2004).

 
Ingredients from Rick Bayless’s Recipe
: Bayless (2007), 198.

 
all domesticated in the New World
: Smith (1997), Matsuoka et al. (2002), Austin (1988). Beans were likely independently domesticated in the Andes as well as Mesoamerica: Pickersgill and Debouck (2005).

 
The turkey’s trip to Europe
: Schorger (1966), 4.

 
turkey from the mid-Atlantic trade islands
: Other New World products, for example potatoes, were known to have first reached Europe in this way from the Canaries rather than directly from the Americas. R
os et al. (2007), Heywood (2012).

 
The trader would bring goods
: Gelderblom (2004).

 
The Antwerp Bourse
: Image courtesy Werner Wittersheim.

 
enabled common pricings to be established
: Kohn (2003), 55.

 
galine de Turquie
(Turkish chicken)
: Jacques Coeur, the fabulously wealthy French financier and trader with the Levant, sent his nephew Jean de Village to Alexandria in 1447 for an audience with the Mamluk sultan. Jean returned with
gallinas turcicas
(Turkish chickens).
Clément
(1863), 141 (footnote).

 
Europeans in the 1400s
: Renaissance princes like Good King René of Provence bought the birds to populate their parks and menageries. And in 1491, guinea fowl were received at Marseille for Anne de Beaujeu, the sister and regent for King Charles VIII of France. See Antoine (1917), 35–50.

 
Portuguese globes and nautical charts
: Harley (1988), Kimble (1933).

 
confused in Dutch
: J. Reygersbergen,
Dye chronijcke van Zeelandt
, 1551: “Dese schipper . . . hadde in een nieu Landt gheweest in Africa, ghenaemt caput Viride, daer noyt eenighe schepen uyt dese Landen inne geweest hadden. . . . Dit schip brochte [1528] die eerste Kalkoensche hoenderen in Zeelandt.”

 
French naturalist Pierre Belon’s drawing
: Image courtesy Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

 
Artemis turned them into guinea fowl,
Meleagrides
:
A less melodramatic but more plausible etymology for
meleagris
is that it is a borrowing from a Phoenician word related to the god Melqart (from the Semitic
melek
, “king”), because of early Phoenician ships trading in exotic birds along with olives and wine while they spread the alphabet around the Mediterranean. But that’s a story for another day. See Thompson (1
936)
, 114.