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We’re returning to the theme of renaming, for two food-related renamings: the first one that mostly happened, the second that mostly did not - but in a good way.
Dr Erin Pritchard persuaded a British supermarket to rebrand a type of sweets that had a slur in their name. And Chris Strikes recounts the renaming conflict that was the Toronto Patty Wars of 1985.
Content note: the first part of the episode concerns an ableist slur, so there are incidences of that slur, and discussion of ableism and later anti-Black racism.
EXTRA MATERIALS:
Watch Chris’s short documentary Patty Vs Patty on YouTube or the CBC Gem.
Read Erin’s 2020 article in Big Issue North.
Also Erin: “It is truly baffling that, in this day and age, a number of British retailers are still able to use this disablist hate speech to market their products.”
“The first step in The Pattie Project was to operationalize ‘pattie’.”
“The Jamaican patty is a derivative of the Cornish pasty – a baked pastry filled with meat or vegetables. The Cornish pasty was brought to the Caribbean by British colonists and was enhanced by by the African and Indian people of the Caribbean.”
“A good pasty could even survive being dropped down a mine shaft! The crust (crimp) served as a ‘handle’ – a means of holding the pasty with dirty hands without contaminating the meal. Arsenic commonly accompanies tin within the ore that they were mining so, to avoid arsenic poisoning, the crimp was an essential part of the pasty.”
“It takes a special kind of person to popularize a catchy term that has both the ability to completely subjugate an entire group of people, and also has the longevity to span several generations.”
“It's not a case of me saying I would never play a Christmas Elf. It's more that I would never play a badly written Christmas Elf and I've never seen a well-written one.”
In 1985, the Toronto Star reports on the Patty Wars.
Sinéad Burke got a Gaeilge term for little person added to Irish dictionary.
In bad choices news: slurs are back in Scrabble.
Otherlusionists to listen to: the other renaming episodes. The episode F'ood is about some other mayhem in Canadian food terminology law, this time pertaining to plant-based versions of foodstuffs more commonly made with animal products. Also in there is the etymological journey of ‘burger’. The playalong Food Quiz with Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway is full of fun food etymologies. And need a brainbath? Listen to the Tranquillusionist where I read the names of 282 salads.
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YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
yaw, verb (of a moving ship or aircraft): twist or oscillate about a vertical axis. Noun: twisting or oscillation of a moving ship or aircraft about a vertical axis.
Origin 16th century: of unknown origin.
CREDITS:
Dr Erin Pritchard is a senior lecturer in disability and education at Liverpool Hope University. Her books include Midgetism: The Exploitation and Discrimination of People with Dwarfism, and Dwarfism, Spatiality and Disabling Experiences.
Chris Strikes is the founder of Callowgrove Entertainment and is the director, writer, and one of the producers of Patty Vs Patty, as well as films including Becoming A Queen, a documentary about Canada’s most decorated carnival queen Joella Crichton.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The original Allusionist music is by Martin Austwick. Download his songs at palebirdmusic.com and listen to his podcasts Song By Song and Neutrino Watch.
Find the Allusionist at youtube.com/allusionistshow, twitter.com/allusionistshow, facebook.com/allusionistshow, @allusionistshow.bsky.social and instagram.com/allusionistshow
Back in early December with a new episode - HZ.
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