The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu (42 page)

 
in the eastern Mediterranean that true dried pasta existed
: Perry (1981).

 
the fifth-century Jerusalem Talmud
: Talmud Yerushalmi, Beitza I:9 and Challah I:4.

 
itriyah
was an Arabic word for dried noodles
: Perry (1981).

 
It was thus in Sicily
: For the history of the Arab invention of pasta and its European spread, see Serventi and Sabban (2000), 14–15, Wright (2007), and Verde (2013).

 
Muhammad al-Idrisi, the Moroccan-born geographer
: Perry (1981).

 
the eleventh-century French scholar Rashi
: Silvano and Sabban (2002), 30–31.

 
modern Yiddish word
chremsel
:
For a modern recipe for
chremslach
(the plural of
chremsel
), see Schwartz (2008), 178.

 
the seer Nostradamus
: Redon, Sabban, and Serventi (1998), 205; de Nostredame (1555), 202.

 
calzone
:
There were ravioli-like versions of this recipe too, some of them described by Jews who had emigrated north from Italy as well. For example, in the fourteenth century R. Moses Parnas of Rotenberg, Germany, wrote in the
Sefer haParnas
of “
calsinos
which are called
kreplins
,” referring to the dumplings now called
kreplakh
in Yiddish. See Weingarten (2010), 55.

 
We don’t know whether
maccarruni
came from Arabic
: For two proposals for Arabic etymologies see Wright (1996) and Nasrallah (2013), 268.

 
or even comes from the Greek
makaria
:
OED
entries for
macaroni
and
macaroon
.

 
the origin of the phrase “macaronic verse”
: The
OED
entry for
macaronic
says that Teofilo Folengo described his 1517 macaronic poem
Liber Macaronices
as named for macaroni which was a “course, crude, rustic dish of flour, butter, and cheese.”

 
Sicilian maccherone was made of
: Ballerini (2005), 70.

 
a list of fantastical desserts in Rabelais’
Gargantua and Pantagruel
:
Book 4, Chapter 59; the long list includes “Beuignetz. Tourtes de seize facons. Guauffres. Crespes. Patez de Coings. Caillebotes. Neige de Crème. Myrobalans confictz. Gelee. Hippocras rouge & vermeil. Poupelins. Macarons. Tartres vingt sortes. Crème. Confictures seiches & liquids soixante & dixhuyt especes. Dragee, cent couleurs.”

 
Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery
:
Hess (1996).

 
probably written in the early 1600s
: Hess (1996), 462, concludes that this manuscript was written either in the 1650s or somewhat earlier, but was in any case a fair copy of an earlier manuscript.

 
To Make Mackroons
: Hess (1996), 341.

 
the turning point in this transition
: Albala (2007), 57.

 
Macaron (“La maniere de faire du macaron”)
: Scully (2006), 369.

 
food writer Cindy Meyers writes
: Meyers (2009).

 
A macaron in the style
: Image from Albert Seigneurie,
Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de l’épicerie et des industries amexes
(Paris: L’épicier, 1898).

 
what the
Larousse Gastronomique
calls
:
Larousse Gastronomique
(2001), 706.

 
Name mixups persisted in English
: For example, S. Williams’ 1834 “The Parterê of Poetry and Historical Romance,” page 227, has
macaronies
to mean “macaroons.”

 
use of coconut increased greatly
: Zizumbo-Villarreal (1996), Dixon (1985). There is a recipe for “Cocoa-Nut Cakes” in the 1833 (twelfth) edition of Lydia M. Child’s
The American Frugal Housewife.
Available free online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13493.

 
on the back of another recipe for the cake
: Emily Dickinson museum. http://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/cooking.

 
Dickinson’s own recipe
: Food writer Tori Avey gives a nice explanation of how to make it on her blog
The History Kitchen
.

 
Cocoanut Cake
:
Recipe from a photograph of Dickinson’s original, from
The History Kitchen
blog and then courtesy of Poet’s House c/o President and Fellows of Harvard College.

 
Emily Dickinson
: Image courtesy of The Emily Dickinson Collection, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections.

 
ambrosia
: For example, there is an ambrosia recipe in Mary Newton Foote Henderson’s
Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877), 286.

 
coconut macaroons, also appear first quite early
: The earliest recipe I have found with the full name is “Cocoa-nut Maccaroons” in Leslie (1840). But there is a coconut macaroon recipe labeled “Cocoa-nut cakes” in her earlier 1830 book
Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats
; this book also has what may be the very first recipe for cupcakes.

 
matzo manufacturers like Streit’s
: Personal communication from Alan Adler of Aron Streit, Inc.

 
Esther Levy’s 1871
Jewish Cookery Book
:
Levy (1871), 78.

 
A Parisian baker, Pierre Desfontaines
: The Ladurée website credits Desfontaines: www.laduree.com. The Gerbet family is mentioned in an article by Frédéric Levent, “Pour l’Honneur Retrouvé du Macaron Gerbet,”
L’Echo Républicain
, August 24, 2010. http://web.archive.org/web/20100825182837/http://www.lechorepublicain.fr/pour-l-honneur-retrouve-du-macaron-gerbet-,697.html.

 
The Macaroni
:
Image courtesy of the Walpole Library, Yale University.

 
the Persians probably got the almond pastry
: Perry (2005), 99; Nasrallah (2013), 59.

 
the ideas of sociologists Georg Simmel and Thorstein Veblen
: Veblen (1899), Simmel (1904). See also Laudan (2013), 55.

 
trickle down to the masses
: See also Goody (1982), Mintz (1985), and Anderson (2005).

Eleven: Sherbet, Fireworks, and Mint Juleps

 
Ice cream was invented
: Two superb books on the history of ice cream and ices are David (1995) and Quinzio (2009).

 
One day in the daily flavors
: Image courtesy of Janet Yu and Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous.

 
handwritten in Grace Countess Granville’s Receipt Book
: David (1979), 27.

 
Neige de Fleur D’orange
: David (1979), 28. From Francois Pierre La Varenne,
Nouveau Confiturier
, later edition ca. 1696.

 
by 1700 other ice cream flavors
: Quinzio (2009), 15.

 
medieval cookbooks give recipes for cooking quince
: Lewicka (2011), 276, 461.

 
appears in a thirteenth-century cookbook manuscript
: Miranda (1966), 300: Pasta de Membrillo. English translation by Charles Perry available at http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian10.htm#Heading521.

 
To make Marmalade
: Simmons (1796), 40.

 
To Make Orange Marmalade
: Wilson (2010), 145.

 
Rhubarb syrup. Opens liver obstruction
: Chipman and Lev (2006).

 
In medieval Persia
: Batmanglij (2011), 503.

 
even mentioned in the Bible
: David (1995), xi.

 
Claudia Roden talks nostalgically of the sharbat
: Roden (2000), 484.

 
Lime Syrup (Sharbat-e ablimu)
: Recipe from Batmanglij (2011), 509. Courtesy Mage Publishers, www.mage.com.

 
the French naturalist Pierre Belon in 1553
: http://books.google.com/books?id=VYcsgAYyIZcC&q=cherbet. Mysteriously, Belon used two words,
cherbet
and
sorbet
, and French traveler Nicolay also used
sorbet
. It’s not clear why both were mentioned (perhaps different pronunciations by different ethnic groups in Istanbul?) or why the form “sorbet” caught on in Romance languages.

 
Thirsty passersby would buy a glass of syrup
: Belon (1553), 418.

 
Jean Chardin, a seventeenth-century French traveler
: Chardin (1673–1677).

 
lohusa
erbet
served to new mothers
:
Isin (2003), 80.

 
“sherbets made in Turkie of Lemons, Roses, and Violets perfumed”
: David (1995), 156.

 
the guild of limonadiers
: Spary (2012), 103.

 
The Arabs had earlier brought lemons
: The word comes from Arabic
laymun
and Persian
l
m
u
n
. Sweetened lemon juice had been a common trade commodity in medieval Egypt.