Orange to cinnamon: A new Duden book explains the origins of food words from A to Z. It becomes clear that people used to think of the genital area of men when it came to avocados.
Berlin – The word “orange” is derived from apple in China and “cinnamon” found its way into German via Latin and Greek, although it was once borrowed from the Malay word for “liquorice” (kayumanis).
The new book “Sprachschätze – Eating and Drinking: The Hidden Origin of Our Words” from Duden-Verlag explains more than 200 terms from the world of eating and drinking.
For example, the word “appetite” is based on the Latin verb “ap-petere” (reach for something, demand, desire), the “baguette” is based on the French word for “rod”, which in turn derives from the Italian “bacchetta” (stick) derived from the Latin “baculum”. The “roulade” comes from the French verb “rouler” (to roll). Since the end of the 18th century it has also been customary in German for the hearty fare of stuffed meat rolls.
The word “cappuccino” (brown coffee drink: espresso with hot milk foam) has a church background. “Cappuccio” means the hood in Italian. “The name for this type of coffee preparation can be traced back to the color of the capuchin monks’ robes.”
If you eat currywurst, the spice mixture in powder form is a word that immigrated from Anglo-Indian in the 19th century. “This initially referred to a dish cooked with various hot spices, then also a combination of such spices in general. Ahead is Tamil “kari” (dunk). “
The “cocktail”? Strictly speaking, the English-American word means “cock’s tail”. It “could go back to” cocktailed horses “- horses with clipped, tied tails that are not pure-bred, that is,” mixed “.
The word “tofu” for curd-like cheese made from soybean milk? “In the 1980s, the noun was borrowed from Japanese” tōfu “. This goes back to the synonymous Chinese word, where the first component “tō” “bean”, the second “fu” means “fermentation, coagulation”. The further origin is uncertain. “
The word “avocado”, on the other hand, was only borrowed from the older Spanish “avocado” in the 20th century, according to “Duden”. “This is a folk etymological reinterpretation of” ahuacatl “(also” testicles “) – a word from the Nahuatl”. Nahuatl is an Aztec language. dpa
