Visit theallusionist.org/foodquiz to hear this episode and fill in the answers on the interactive score sheet
This is the Allusionist, in which I, Helen Zaltzman, get home to find language smeared all over the walls.
Today, we are quizzing. All of the questions are about food etymology, and two delicious friends of the show will be quizzing along. Play along with us: grab a pen and paper or you can use the interactive answer sheet at theallusionist.org/foodquiz.
While you get ready, heed this: I just performed a brand new Allusionist live show the other day with house band Martin last week, and it is a big old parade of languagey fun. You can still watch it online via KingsPlace.co.uk for the rest of this month, September 2021. And in it you will hear about words including:
[Clips from live show]
Bechtel test!
Uziel Gal of Uzi guns!
Myers Briggs tests - that's as a mother and daughter team.
Saxophone!
Poubelle is the French for rubbish bin, after the lawyer and administrator Eugene Poubelle.
Venn diagrams weren't invented by John Venn.
Shirley Temples!
It could be worse, like 'boycott'.
Big daddy of the Greek gods.
An effect called the Thatcher Effect - care to guess, Martin?
"Everyone's saying you invented ice cream?" The moist chamber.
To get the full show, go to theallusionist.org/events for the link. I don't know when, if ever, I'll get to perform it again. So this is your one certain chance to see it.
Are you ready to quiz? I said, Are you ready to quiz? That was a practice question, no points for answering. On with the food quiz.
SAMIN NOSRAT: My name is Samin Nosrat. I'm a writer, a cook, and also cohost of the Home Cooking podcast.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: And I'm Hrishikesh Hirway. I'm a musician, and I'm the other cohost of the Home Cooking podcast.
HZ: Samin, you've got the first question.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Oh, I do. I do. I do. I do. Okay, question one: aperitif derives from the Latin verb 'aperire', meaning 'to open' because in France, historically aperitifs were drinks you take in at the start of a meal to encourage you to open your: A. mouth, B. belt, or C. bowels.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Wow.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Can I try? I took Latin, and I'm a cook.
HZ: Yeah, and you speak Italian as well.
SAMIN NOSRAT: It's true - but none of those actually answer any of this. But I do have a guess. I would guess that the answer is a mouth. in Farsi we have a bunch of sayings about sort of like opening your appetite, or mouth-opening foods, and I feel like it's kind of a thing that happens across languages across cultures. Even though I can't connect the dots of aperitivo and aperire and the idea of opening going there, I think that idea of opening your appetite and opening your mouth are kind of connected. So that's where I would go.
HZ: The answer is bowels! Aperitifs were laxative drinks. I don't know whether they took them at the beginning of a meal to create some room, or whether it's just the kind of thing where a French word has been appropriated and its original meaning has been left behind a bit.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Now I feel stupid.
HZ: No, not at all. Your Farsi explanation was a lot more romantic, and less laxativey, so I liked it. I've divided the rest of the questions into savoury and sweet, so let's head into the savoury course with Hrishi's question,.
SAVOURY COURSE
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: OK. Etymologically, 'calamari' means: A. beautiful sea; B. inky swimmer, or C. pens.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I think I'm gonna go with beautiful sea. Just because the 'mar'. I don't know how 'cala' can be related to beautiful but I'm gonna go with that.
HZ: 'Kalos' is beautiful in Greek.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Oh, I only took one semester of ancient Greek so I don't think we got to that word.
HZ: It was the first one we learned. Three months of just declining that.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Is she right?
HZ: No, the answer is pens.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Pens?!
HZ: It's from the Greek 'calamos' which means pen, because of the squid's long pointy shape, and obviously it's got ink coming out of one of its ends.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Wow. That's so cool. I love that.
HZ: I was very excited. Calamari are to do with pens.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Calamos. I love that. That's so beautiful. Wow. I love old wordy things, aka etymology.
HZ: I'm glad you're on board with this.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I'm into it.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Okay, question three. Which of the following ingredients was 1920s slang for an attractive girl: A. mozzarella; B. tomato; or C. avocado?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I don't know, but I'm using all of them from now on.
HZ: And what a great salad all together.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Oh, wow. Yeah. When you see a group of attractive women, you got a pizza.
SAMIN NOSRAT: You're gonna put avocado on your pizza?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Sure!
SAMIN NOSRAT: Disgusting. My guess is B. tomato, because avocados have a very specific and limited ecosystem where they grow. And I think it'd be weird to call an attractive girl a mozzarella. So I'm gonna go with tomato. And also, this question reminded me of the Italian slang, the word finocchio, which is used for - do you know what that one is?
HZ: Is that fennel?
SAMIN NOSRAT: It's a fennel, which is Italian slang for a gay guy.
HZ: Wow. Why?
SAMIN NOSRAT: So I'm like, oh, all the vegetable slangs. I'm really into it.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I actually know the answer to this one, so I was holding off.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Oh, okay.
HZ: What is it?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: It is tomato.
HZ: Yeah. Because of juiciness. Not sure I fully follow that logic, the choice of tomato over everything that is juicy. Why not grapes?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I like any food item to describe anybody, especially because they're attractive. I think it could work for anything. Just pick something - "Oh my god, look at that calamari, so hot."
SAMIN NOSRAT: I mean, I named my dog fava bean.
HZ: Yeah, you have a food nickname for me, Hrishi.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: That's true. Did you know that, Samin, that my nickname for Helen is 'Pizza’?
SAMIN NOSRAT: What? Because of all the Z's?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Because I once told Helen about this atrocious pamphlet that I read at the train station when I was in college. It was for some kind of like - I think it was called student advantage. Do you remember the student advantage card? There was a pamphlet for student advantage card, and they were trying to say like how useful it could be. And they're like, "Everybody knows students need a few extra bucks, whether it's to do laundry, buy some books, or just grab a slice of 'za!" And I had never heard that before, 'za, apostrophe Z A, and I was looking and I was like, "Are they trying to say pizza? They're abbreviating pizza? This is how cool kids say pizza. What is this?" And I felt so offended that they were trying to market, at me, a student, using this kind of language. And I told Helen about this, and then immediately after that she was doing a Reddit AMA and, and I think I went in there and I asked her if she was really hiding the fact that Helen Zaltzman was short for Helen Pizzaltzman.
HZ: Yes, my family shortened it when they moved to an Anglophone country.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, so now I just call her 'Pizza' for short. Naturally.
HZ: I just think an abbreviation where you understand less what the thing was is not a good one. I suppose you are saving a whole syllable which is half of the effort.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Plus you sound SO cool and SO with it, calling it just 'za.
HZ: And you must be very busy person not to be able to do the full 'pizza'.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: You're a student, you've got skateboarding to do.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Question four: which ingredient means, etymogically, 'spear leak'? Okay, is the answer: A. green onions?
SAMIN NOSRAT: No!
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: B. Garlic?
SAMIN NOSRAT: No!
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Or C. chives?
HZ: All the alliums.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Wait a minute. I didn't know it was any of these! Spear leek. Wait - garlic?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: A. green onions, B. is garlic, chives is C.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I'm going to go with green onions.
HZ: It is garlic.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Really?
HZ: The 'gar' meant spear, which apparently meant the clove - I guess because it grows little green shoots?
SAMIN NOSRAT: Yeah, no, they are.
HZ: The '-lac' is the same word as leak, which I never realised until this very day.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Me neither. Wow. For some reason, I thought you were gonna say asparagus. I thought that was gonna be a choice. Obviously not! This quiz is really hard.
HZ: It's a good thing there are no prizes except for being allowed to go.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Except for being a loser.
HZ: No!! The prize is learning.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Yes, that's true.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Question five: carpaccio, the dish of thinly pounded raw meat, is named for the painter Vittore Carpaccio because his paintings featured a lot of: A. red paint; B. cows; or C. hammers. I truly have no idea.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Me neither. Hey, this is an eponym!
HZ: Yeah! There's a lot of food eponyms. I'm surprised that you both don't already have several foodstuffs named after you.
SAMIN NOSRAT: What would a Hrishi be?
HZ: Definitely a cookie of some kind.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I was going for some kind of eponym that means “open your bowels”, but it was taken.
HZ: I think Hrishi will be a cookie that every bite except one is delicious, and one bite has puns in it.
SAMIN NOSRAT: It makes you spit it out and want a refund.
HZ: The answer is red paint.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Excellent. That makes sense. I like that. I think that's beautiful.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Okay, question six. There was an old English word, 'nonmete' - am I saying that correctly?
HZ: No one knows; everyone who knew how to say it has been dead for 1200 years.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Great. It was pronounced non-meat. And it meant 'noon meat'. But what did that 'noon meat' mean? Did it mean: A. lunch; B. a dozen sausages; or C. afternoon delight?
SAMIN NOSRAT: C! C! C! C!
HZ: It is lunch. Noon meat!
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Right. Sure. What the vegans do in the Old English world?
HZ: 'Meat' used to just mean 'food'. Rather than specifically animal flesh food.
SAMIN NOSRAT: 'Meat' just meant food?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: It's too bad that 'non meat' in Old English didn't just mean non meat, because that would work really well for vegans.
HZ: So you could have non-non meat.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Right? Exactly. There you go. You solve it. One thing that I really like is that in India, and in general when you're talking about Indian food, there's questions like, "Does he eat non veg?" That's the question. Like the sort of default is vegetarian, and then the exception is if one eats meat, it's like, oh, you eat non veg.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I like that.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I like that too.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Question seven. Which nut's name etymologically means 'foreign nut': A. peanut; B. walnut; C. almond? I think I know, I think I know, I think I know, I think I know.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Wait, can I guess which one you think it is? Samin, I think you think it's C. almond.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Yeah. Why do you think I think it's that?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Because the 'mond' is sort of like the world, and so the foreign part of it could mean, you know, not from this world.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Mm hmm. And I feel like there's something - so there's this thing in Farsi where the word for strawberry is tout farangi, which means like, farhang means foreign, so 'foreign berry' is tout farangi, but colloquially, sometimes something foreign means that it's better. Or at least that's the way a lot of times my family used it, like, the things you could get in Iran in the 90s, versus the things you could get that came from Europe, the European version was a lot nicer. So it was like, "Oh, we got the farhang version." And so for whatever reason, I think I conflated farhang with French - and then I think I've just conflated two other things. The word for Germany is - and there are a lot of French words in Farsi. So the word for Germany...
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Wow. So my reason for why you guessed 'almond' was totally wrong.
HZ: So close, Hrishi!
SAMIN NOSRAT: The [French] word for Germany is Allemagne, right?
HZ: Notorious almond hotspot.
SAMIN NOSRAT: And I did see the mond and the world. And I was like, Oh, yeah! So all of these things were somehow a jumble in my head. And I was like, 100% foreign nut. The end.
HZ: Again, very intelligent guesswork, and also falling into the traps I laid.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Totally wrong. 100% incorrect.
HZ: Well, it's just what would intelligent people think etymologically plausible?
SAMIN NOSRAT: So what's the right answer? And why?
HZ: The answer is walnut.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Tell me more.
HZ: Well, the Old English - I can't pronounce this either because I'm 1000 years too young - is wealh, which meant foreign, and hnutu, which meant nut. And it was because walnuts had been brought in from Gaul and Italy.
SAMIN NOSRAT: But I thought walnuts were originally from Iran.
HZ: They could well have been, it's just they got into English indirectly.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Like everything is originally from Iran. I am making my people simultaneously embarrassed and proud.
SWEET COURSE
HZ: We're onto the sweet course.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Okay, question eight: dessert came to the English language in the 1600s from a French word 'desservir', meaning what? A. To clear the table; B. to loosen your belt; or C. to pour sugar into your mouth?
SAMIN NOSRAT: I just feel like I cannot even play this game anymore. Because Helen has just -
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: She's in your head.
SAMIN NOSRAT: She's in my head.
HZ: Oh no.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Let's see. I'm gonna go with A. to clear the table.
HZ: Correct.
SAMIN NOSRAT: That's what I wanted to choose, but then you were in my head!
HZ: You've got to trust yourself again. You're going to have to rebuild that.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Because servir is related to serving.
HZ: Yes, that is correct. And then the 'des' on the front is removal of what has been served.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Question nine. 'Mousse' derives from a French word meaning: A. mouse; B. clouds; or C. scum?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Erm, Helen is in my head as well.
HZ: Oh no! Forget I'm even here!
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Because I'd want to say clouds, because that of course makes sense and goes along with what mousse is like, both the food and the hair product. But scum being so out there as option C makes me think that Helen put that in there because it's the right answer. But I also feel like now, nine questions in, she recognises that WE recognise that sometimes she does a weird one as a C answer and then that turns out to be right, so she's doing one that's intentionally not right. You see what I'm going with this?
HZ: This is like the iocane powder scene in Princess Bride.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Exactly. Yeah. Well, I'm just gonna go with C. scum.
HZ: It's correct. It was the froth that they skimmed off the top of mead.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I'm in YOUR head, Helen!
HZ: Oh, welcome. I would have tidied up if I knew you were coming.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Okay, question ten: Snickers bars were launched by Mars in 1930, and named after the Mars family favourite: A. horse; B. dog; or C. nanny?
SAMIN NOSRAT: It has to be a horse. You have to name your horse Snickers. Also, they're by this point so rich, they have to have a horse named Snickers.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Which do you think takes more wealth, A. horse or C. nanny?
SAMIN NOSRAT: 100% a horse, because horses basically require their own nanny.
HZ: You are correct!
SAMIN NOSRAT: Thank you very much. I finally got one right. And it was about a candy bar. And wealth.
HZ: And a horse.
SAMIN NOSRAT: And now I feel really good about myself.
HZ: Question eleven please, Samin.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I'm guessing you say French toast for bread soaked in eggy liquid and then fried. The dish has been around for at least 2000 years and has lots of names; not just French toast, but also Spanish toast, Bombay toast and nun's toast. But which of the following is not a real name that French toast is also known by? A. pain perdu, French for lost bread; B. sunshine toast; or C. poor knights of Windsor. I'm gonna go with B. sunshine toast, because poor knights of Windsor just sounds weird. And that sounds very Helen.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, that one's too specific.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Sunshine toast sounds like something a Florida grandma would make up on Tuesday for her children.
HZ: Remember, you're choosing the one that's not a real name.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Correct.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yes. Right. Sunshine toast. I agree with you, Samin.
HZ: You're correct. Well, maybe some people call it sunshine toast. But poor knights of Windsor is a real name for French toast.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: That's great.
HZ: Hrishi, your question.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Helen, I'll let you ask question twelve.
HZ: I don't know why you're playing this one coy. Hrishi. Question twelve. Which ingredient shares etymology with the word vagina? A. vanilla; B. vinegar; or C. vodka?
SAMIN NOSRAT: I'm gonna go with vanilla. Because I don't know the etymology of vagina. I would guess that the etymology of vodka comes from Russian.
HZ: 'Little water' or something, isn't it?
SAMIN NOSRAT: Yeah. And what was the other one - vinegar is related to wine. And I cannot understand why vagina would be related to wine.
HZ: Whereas vanilla, of course.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Yeah, vanilla makes total sense. So I'm going to go with vanilla.
HZ: It is vanilla, because it was in a husk, which is not the most flattering. The Latin word vagina meant a husk or a scabbard, like a sword's scabbard.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Right! Yes. I think I did know that somewhere deep in there. Hrishi, you can't say the word vagina? That's too upsetting for you? It's beyond your comfort zone? You just can't do it?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: You know, it registers above a zero on my embarrassment scale.
HZ: Vanilla is the diminutive of the word 'vaina', which is from the Latin 'vagina'. So it's a little vagina.
SAMIN NOSRAT: It's a little vagina!
HZ: But Hrishi can't say it.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Hrishi loves vanilla ice cream.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: I'm gonna think about that every time I add a little vanilla extract to a cookie.
HZ: All right, question thirteen.
SAMIN NOSRAT: The phrase 'top banana' came about as a slang for: A. the President; B. the person on top of a human pyramid; or C. a headlining comedian?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Definitely not the human pyramid. And I say the president is too obvious. I'm going to go with the headlining comedian.
HZ: You are correct. It's been in showbiz jargon since 1927, thanks to a routine where three comedians were trying to eat two bananas.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Oh, memorialised in that famous series Three Comedians. Two Bananas.
HZ: Early YouTube sensation.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yup.
HZ: And then they started calling the top-billed comic top banana, and they had second banana and third banana. And they had some quite offensive terms for other people working in vaudeville.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Question fourteen: in some of the earliest known recipes for meringues, in English cookbooks from the 1600s, meringues are called A. pets; B. cuties; or C. fluffs?
SAMIN NOSRAT: A.
HZ: Pets? What's your working?
SAMIN NOSRAT: Zero. It can't be cuties, that's like to modern. 'Fluff' just sounds too cute and too modern. So just has to be A.
HZ: You're right, 'cute' is only attested from 1731.
SAMIN NOSRAT: There you go.
HZ: That was the dead giveaway for you, wasn't it, Samin? You are correct; they were called pets, and I have a bonus question: what does ‘pets’ mean in French? They are still known as pets in some areas of France. Does pets mean: A pets; B. farts; or C. boobs?
SAMIN NOSRAT: Is it a fart or is it a boob? Is it a fart or is it a boob? Fart or boob, fart or boob, fart or boob, fart or boob?
HZ: That's a great song, that.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Are you going to remix this? Fart or boob, fart or boob, fart or boob.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: You know the two words that automatically make a dance song? Cats and boots? Cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots and cats and boots.... It kind of works here with Samin's options.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Yeah, it kind of works. Farts and boobs and farts and boobs and farts and boobs and farts and boobs and farts and boobs.
HZ: What are you gonna go for: farts or boobs? I know it hurts you to choose just one of those.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I'm gonna go with boobs.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Sounds good.
HZ: You're both going boobs? I'm afraid the answer is farts. Because meringues are full of air.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Of course.
HZ: Well, congratulations, you survived the quiz.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I'm still alive! Sort of.
HZ: You are. You did some very intelligent etymological reasoning. And I'm sorry that it destroyed your self esteem.
SAMIN NOSRAT: I only embarrassed my ancestors like six or seven times.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Helen, thank you so much for having us.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Helen. My brain feels exercised. So thank you.
HZ: I'm sorry that, like all exercise, it was unpleasant at the time.
The Allusionist is an independent podcast recorded in a cupboard full of cardigans in suburban London in between bursts of loud music emanating from a festival happening just over the brow of the hill. I can’t afford the music rights! If you fancy supporting the show, and want behind the scenes insights into the episodes, become a patron at patreon.com/allusionist. Help keep me in acoustically muffling cardigans. Also patrons get a 20% discount on the live show, which as aforementioned is available via kingsplace.co.uk for the rest of this month of September 2021, go get it, don’t tarry!
Your randomly selected word from the dictionary today is...
karoshi, noun (in Japan): death caused by overwork. Origin: Japanese, from ‘ka’ excess, ‘rō’ labour, ‘shi’ death.
Try using karoshi in an email today.
This episode was written and produced by me, Helen Zaltzman. The music is by Martin Austwick of palebirdmusic.com and the experimental podcast Neutrino Watch.
Thanks to Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway. They host the podcast Home Cooking, one of my favourites; it’s a very feelgood listen as well as full of great cooking advice. You should also subscribe to Hrishi’s podcasts including Song Exploder, as well as his new bulletin Accept Cookies, a twice-monthly newsletter about creativity and culture, and cookies. Sign up at hrishikesh.bulletin.com, and I’ll link to it as well at theallusionist.org/foodquiz.
Find @allusionistshow on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And hear or read every episode, see the full dictionary entries for the randomly selected words, get tickets for events if any are ever happening, and browse a lexicon for all the words ever covered in the podcast with links to the relevant episode, visit the show’s forever home theallusionist.org.
SAMIN NOSRAT: Farts and boobs and farts and boobs and farts and boobs…
