Off to England, I am soon. So pip, pip, cheerio and all that rot...
Rot? Hope I don't stumble onto too much of that. Cheerios? Breakfast cereal?
It's funny how words related to food seep into everyday language and everyday language creeps into our food vernacular, some of the references ironic - trifle, that delightful dessert, being nothing to be trifled with. And others, like clotted cream, are steeped in all things repugnant and Gothic, as in clotted blood. (I've never met anything clotted I've liked).
There's absolutely nothing like English in England, where mother tongue meets motherland, and one can only hope that they don't slip a little sliced tongue into that deli sandwich you've just ordered. Best to remain stalwartly polite if they do.
I've just dusted off my trusty Oxford English Dictionary in anticipation of said trip. Admittedly, it is only the compact version, not the full-on 20-volume edition, but still at just over 4,000 pages it's nothing to be trifled with in terms of sussing out word etymologies. It also never fails to remind me how barren the average Canadian vocabulary is and that isn't even considering French, nor how plain our naming can sometimes be.
"Trifle," by the way, in the context of dessert, was first used in 1598 in a poem: "a kinde of clouted creme called a foole or a trifle in English." And that explains that other funny word for the English dessert that's perfect for a hot summer's day, a fruit fool. Kids love it when you serve fools - take that meaning either way you like - just so they can say the name, which likely originated from the French word "fouler" which means to press or crush.
You make fools - see? Even adults can't resist playing with the name - by whipping up some good cream and blending it with pureed tart fruits like raspberries, rhubarb or gooseberries. The latter grow like stinkweed in England and likely were so-named for their association with geese. But you don't have to go to England to enjoy gooseberries, for they grow right in the Fraser Valley.
And if you really want to get your kids howling with delight, whip them up that perennial British oddity, or at least odd to we Canucks - spotted dick. This simple bread-like pudding dotted with raisins or currants belies its crazy name. We bought a tinned spotted dick once at a British import store for far too much money (try to keep a straight face writing a line like that) and it was so terrible that I recommend you getting a recipe and making your own. But then you won't have the empty tin on hand to endlessly amuse your pals.
Sobering up for a moment, OED explains that "dick" was used for at least a decade before we find the first recorded citation for it as slang for "penis" in 1891. Prior to that it was used variously to refer to a type of cheese as well as to riding whips, both of which have their own wry connotations.
Another British treat with "pudding" in its name, though it really isn't one, is poor knights' pudding, also called poor knights of Windsor, which is pretty much the English way of making what we call French toast. Spread jam or syrup between two slices of bread you've dipped in an egg batter and cooked up in a frying pan. Traditionally, this was a tasty and thrifty way to feed soldiers.
Angel's food cake is another sweet treat that isn't particularly English, but we have the English to thank for an early use of the name. "Angel's food" was a name for a strong ale in "jolly old" and there are many folks today who wouldn't disagree. The Brits also had angel-bread, a kind of purgative cake made with oatmeal and flour, ginger and spurge - a family of pretty plants, often known as euphorbia that includes poinsettias.
Then there's that other perennially British dish, "forcemeat," which can also have some pretty wild connotations on this side of the pond. My first introduction to same was by our English neighbour lady in Edmonton (Alberta, not England) who served it regularly.
In that wonderfully unique way peculiar only to a child's mind, I used to think she was saying "forced meet," as in being forced to meet someone you didn't really want to, which in that particular context was rather appropriate, since she looked like a dried out scarecrow and kind of gave me the creeps.
Forcemeat, in reality, is a highly spiced, finely chopped meat dish that I probably would have liked if I'd gotten over my stiffness with our old neighbour. The word is derived from the Latin farcir , which means to stuff.
I love Martha Bernette's elucidation in her book Ladyfingers and Nun's Tummies that both farcir and forcemeat are etymological relatives of the word "farce," which originally referred to a short, lighthearted play that was "stuffed in between" lengthier, weightier religious productions during the Middle Ages in the hope of keeping audiences from getting bored (future directors take note).
Then there are the words that were part of food vernacular for centuries but have been long-gone. Take "cheeselip," for instance, first cited in 1530 as referring to a worm ("worme" actually) and meaning, variously, the rennet for curdling milk in cheese making, the dried stomach of a calf, the common wood-louse or, and I especially like this one, a Gothic reference in witchcraft to poison herb-lore. Trust those Brits to infuse something wormlike into so many different contexts. Personally, I think it makes for a great insult, as in, hey, cheeselip, waddarya starin' at?
As for pip, pip, cheerio, I've searched the OED high and low and it's nowhere to be found. Apparently it has nothing to do with apple pips or even cereal, but rather came into use at the turn of the last century when it was inspired by the sound a bicycle horn makes, ergo its use in announcing comings and goings.
So pip, pip till we meet again in two weeks. May all your dicks be spotted and all your food come from angels.
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who wonders where "treacle" came from.
