The Stories Behind Food Names | Otherwords 

Extra fact: “urchin” is the Middle English word for hedgehog. Sea Urchin makes a lot of sense when you realize it’s “sea hedgehog”

The idea that people tried to change sauerkraut to freedom cabbage is just the funniest thing to me. I needed to pause the video to stop laughing

In Poland recently a lot of people try to rename "pierogi ruskie" to "pierogi ukraińskie" (due to the Russia's invasion of Ukraine), it's very interesting bc "ruskie" doesnt mean Russian, but Ruthenian

Fun Fact about the etymology of Bombay Duck: The fish used to be snapped predominantly in Bombay (Mumbai), in the west coast, but was truly appreciated in Calcutta (Kolkata), in the east coast. It used to be shipped through the train in the mail freight along with letters and parcels, collectively called "Daak" in Bengali. The word daak got corrupted into duck.

I think Chinese name “qiyiquo” is actually name after “kiwi fruit”. “Mihoutao” (獼猴桃, macaque peach) is what’s originally called. However, when they imported kiwi fruits back to China, they adopted the name and marketed it as “qiyiquo” (奇異果，mystery fruit. Kiwi sounds like qiyi, right?)

In Spanish we only have the alive-dead distinction in food for fish. A fish swimming in the sea is "pez", but once it's in a platter it's "pescado" (Literally means fished or caught)

You're missing a fun but of trivia about Columbus: he also brought back what came to be called "Jamaica pepper" and actually kinda looks like a large peppercorn. It's still called that in Spanish to this day (pimienta de jamaica), but in modern English we call it "allspice".

My abuelo always said "Someone who doesn't know the difference between a burro and a burrow doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground."

The puns are on this channel are always top tier.

this is really fascinating how the etymology of various food names mostly comes from marketing, the prune/dried plum part probably was the most amusing bc it really is cool to be totally regular 😎

I do remember doing a double take at a Vegas buffet a few years back. The soda fountain had 'Kiwi juice' as an option. My reaction, an actual Kiwi (New Zealandler), was of horror at what might emerge from the dispenser. Then I remembered that Americans drop the 'fruit' and all was right with the world. There was a similar moment of confusion back in the 90's during an episode of Friends. Poor Ross and his kiwi allergy.

Can't get enough of this series! Great work as always Dr B. et al ✨

Spanish Tapas come from the verb tapar: "to cover" and depending on who's asking it's either Spanish monarchs who got wine glasses with a snack to cover their drink or farmers who covered their drinks with food to prevent flies from getting in

Oh my gosh, I didn't know that kiwis originated from China! I thought that they always came from a tropical country. Then again, China is a pretty diverse country despite what Westerners usually see it as. Thanks so much for sharing this! I think that this episode may be one of my favorites, next to the one that showcases how language and technology are interconnected with one another. :)

One of my favorite stories is how sandwich came about possibly because it was named after someone who used to be the Earl of Sandwich. Imagine if he had been the Earl of any other town!

Indonesia still manages to differentiate the peppers. As we already had different words for piper pepper (merica or lada) and chili pepper (cabai), the renaming doesn't stick. Even when written in English, we often use chilli (only) instead of chilli pepper, and the pepper part may cause confusion. So if you ask Indonesian, "Is it pepper?" we often answer with, "No, it's chilli." Meanwhile, since we don't have bellpepper, the imported bellpepper is known as "paprika" and many of us doesn't know that it's related to "chilli."

Portuguese as some of the craziest dish names. I love 'steak on horseback' (bife a cavalo) - which is just steak with a fried egg on top - and 'mired cow' (vaca atolada) - a sort of beef and yuca/cassava/manioc stew. There's even a pie dough type that's called 'rotten dough' (massa podre), which is obviously delicious (I believe it's the same dough used for quiches).

You could have added 2 more while on the Mexican dishes with interesting origins! Nacho's come from the guy who created them named Ignacio, of which nacho is a nick name. And Caesar Salad, which many assume to be named for Roman Caesar's, is actually named for its creator, Caesar Cardini, an Italian chef living in Mexico!

I think I took up cooking because learning recipes from around the world is like a crash course in learning a culture and history.

As a weird bit of history: Since sweetbread can mean thymus or pancreas, there was a mix-up in the early 1900's when the Banting team was trying to decoct insulin. They had to collect sweetbreads to extract the insulin and they ended up with a whole bunch of thymuses instead of pancreases from the butcher. Nomenclature can be important.

In much the same way that stores had to find the right name for the kiwifruit, the oh-so-exotic avocado was once sold in the US under the name "alligator pear."

In the Philippines, we have 4 dishes that are quite similar to each other. Menudo, mechado, kalderata, and afritada all feature tomato sauce and may contain bell peppers, carrots, potatoes, and peas. Historically, mechado refers to the cut of meat with a wick (literally "mitsa" or "mecha") of fat in the middle. Kaldereta literally means "cooked in a pot (kaldero)". Menudo is the manner of cutting meat into bite-sized chunks. Afritada literally means "fried" because the meat was supposed to be fried first before cooking in tomato sauce. However in the modern context, their differences boil down to the type of meat. Kalderata is often associated with beef, afritada is usually chicken, and both mechado and menudo are commonly pork.

I think this is one of my favorite shows in the PBS catalogue, every time I watch it I want to share it with my students because it answers so many language questions, which they have a lot of when I'm attempting to teach them reading and writing. plus history is inevitable sprinkled in with the answers too, a two for one deal!

word of advice, in New Zealand don't try to ask for Kiwi at the supermarket, its a protected species, this has lead to many awkward conversations with Americans overseas when they ask me (a kiwi) if I want a kiwi, no thanks I already am one

4:42 “The fruits took off”. Aww this was a missed opportunity to say “For the 1st time Kiwi’s flew off the shelves”.

The fish renaming makes sense. I applaud that

I don't think many Brits today would call maize anything other than "corn" or "sweetcorn". If you're just eating it as is (from the cob or from a can or something) then it's sweetcorn. If it's ground and used as an ingredient to make something else, it's sometimes "maize", but still mostly "corn" (cornflour, corn tortillas, "corn snacks", popcorn, corn nuts etc. etc.) It may possibly be a generational thing, but I'm in my mid-30s and I've never heard anyone call corn "maize" in actual conversation, nor have I heard anyone refer to any other grain as "corn".

Well... the name Qiyiguo (Qiyi fruit) is just a reverse loanword from the commercial branding of the fruit to kiwi. Mihoutao (Macaques' peach) is the original name of the fruit. It's also called Maoli (furry pear), Tengli (Vine pear), Yangtao (Goat peach). Even the word salt has an odd etymology.

i love it when a video actually features a host with the appropriate doctorate...

Urchin is interesting also because it is an older term for hedgehog. "Street urchin" always confused me until I knew this, since a sea urchin being sneaky or mischievous makes no sense but a hedgehog definitely does.

Between you and RobWords, I can get my language geek on quite nicely!

Ngl I’d like to call a Pizza a ‘Freedom Frisbee’ 😂

2:49 OMG i remember learning this in my Linguistics class. It brings back happy memories.

I read about the story of the kiwifruit in a Reader's Digest article when I was a kid, but I never got to eat one until decades later. That's why I still call it as kiwifruit, and just learned of the shortening to kiwi in this video.

Omg, the "totally cool dude" part cracked me 😂😂😂 up... As always, great stuff 👌👍💯

I know it's a Grapefruit, but every time I see the other word all I can think of is "What the hell is a Pamplemouse?!"

Fries being chips in the UK, of course, and what North Americans call chips being crisps. Although our chips are somewhat larger and less crispy, so the word 'fries' has gradually been adopted here to refer to their skinny cousins..

Has "company" been traced? In a Spanish linguistics class, we were taught that "compañero" came from "pan"(bread), as in "the person with whom you break bread"

The Indian corn fact is interesting, as its still informally called 'inja corn' in Welsh but I'd never really thought what it meant. In English I'd typically call it corn on the cob or Sweetcorn, depending on how it's served.

Hi! Wixárika/P'urhépecha before I reconnected with my tribe I learned Nahuatl and just wanted to drop in to correct the way you said Nahuatl. It happens a lot, but the way one would say the name of our the name of the language is Nah what, the L is silent at the end unless you wish to add a classical touch to the way one says it, then it would be Na-Wha-tl the TL make a click when said together but most of us just say Nah what

"Freedom fries" was hilarious. It was like that Simpsons episode with the food truck. "Falafel?" no..."Crunch patties!"

My favorite little food thing is the tropical fruit that I grew up calling ackee, but is apparently ONLY called that in Barbados. Every other english speaking caribbean island calls them gineps (spanish speaking ones call them quinepa). Ackee is instead a whole other fruit in the same family on other islands

I need Other Words to write a book, every episode is gold and tickles that special part of my brain that desperately needed to know why kiwis are called kiwis!

One of my favorite series on RU-vid 🥺

The name was not shortened to kiwi in most countries. Especially here in New Zealand. We say kiwi fruit every time.

0:34 freedom frisbee is honestly something someone would only say just to make people annoyed, like calling GIF "Golf India Foxtrot"

As Arta Johnson used to say on the Laugh in show "ver-r-ry interesting". Keep up the good work, Dr. B!

This show is hilarious! I'm dyslexic so I usually just skip these ones but like absolutely checking out your other videos, this is so cool!

Love the episode, love the channel, and love you!

I love this host! She's full of dad jokes and delivers them w/ enthusiastic verve.

I really like that the famous Italian rum cake is named "zuppa inglese," which translates to "English soup" because it has so much rum xD

I mess with people by telling them that burritos got their name because they originally contained donkey meat. They typically respond with skepticism, but there's always that little hint of belief because it sounds just true enough to be real. The Danish name for Danishes is "wienerbrød" which literally means "Viennese bread" because they originated in Austria.

Just discovered your channel. Verrrry informative!

I’m so intrigued by this episode. The Bengali word for ‘tea’ is ‘cha’ which is also the Mandarin word for it.

"Join the Movement"...oh, man. That was perfect.

Interesting as always Erica. Great job. 👏👏👏

I absolutely love this Erica, I feel like you would be super interesting to have a cuppa with and talk all things linguistics. Your episodes always leave me wanting to know more great job 😁

I could listen to the Dr. all day long. She always makes the content fun and interesting.

When it comes to shortening the name to kiwis, that isn't something we do in New Zealand. Probably because a kiwi is what we call ourselves and our bird, so when an American says that they are eating a kiwi it sounds really weird

Your info on corn is fascinating but I have to wonder how " corned " came to refer to pickled beef brisket .

Freedom Frisbee would be an AWESOME name for a dish!

I love this show so much! Very helpful to use in class!

My favorite unexpected food etymology is the word “ketchup” which likely comes from a Hokkien word for a sauce made of pickled fish brine. When the word first came into use in English, it usually referred to any sauce made by mixing spices with other ingredients, which often included mushrooms or soy sauce. Somewhere along the line tomatoes got mixed up in all this and we have ketchup as we know it today.

Oh, funny thing about food names in Canada! XD Canada actually have VERY stringent food standards and food advertising standards and that actually, of course, has caused some problems, especially with immigrant cuisine. Toronto in the 60s and 70s brought in a MASSIVE wave of immigration and transformed the city from what had once been a very white, WASPy city to the cultural mosaic that it is today and, of course, immigrants would often set up food shops and sell their native cuisine. One of the first communities to do this was Jamaican immigrants, selling patties. Well, the food safety board of Ontario decided in 1985 to crack down on these new businesses and told the patty sellers of Toronto that they had to change the name "patty" because, in Ontario food standards, a "patty" is made of meat, fat, and spices with nothing else added and, since Jamaican patties were wrapped in pastry, they couldn't sell them as "patties" so they had to either change the name or face fines for false advertising. This, of course, infuriated Toronto's Jamaican community, to the point of even contacting the Jamaican embassy to complain about it so much that the Jamaican embassy almost couldn't function from all the calls! XD This was especially bad because it just so happened that the Prime Minister at the time, Brian Mulroney, was due to have a diplomatic trip to Jamaica and this issue had even made it to the FRONT PAGE of Jamaican newspapers! Needless to say, a solution needed to be found before the trip so representatives from the food safety board and the Jamaican patty sellers sat down and the patty sellers eventually proposed a solution, they would specify that they were selling "Jamaican patties" and so would not be in violation of the food safety standards. The food safety board agreed and so hence Jamaican-style patties are known as "Jamaican patties" are here and have since become a beloved food all across the province. If you want to know how beloved, I grew up in a backwater, poverty-riddled city and my high school cafeteria sold Jamaican patties to the students, they were probably the third most popular food there after the pizza and french fries!

This channel rocks. great ep!

Omg this was so much fun. A great video 👏🏽

3:47 The Welsh are British. You're looking for "the English."

Great episode! A bit surprising she didn't mention that the Chinese 'qiyiguo' is a loanword from the English 'kiwifruit'

In the UK, we normally call it 'corn on the cob' or 'sweetcorn'.

I actually lol'd at "Freedom Frisbee". 🤣

Aren't we easy to manipulate 🤣🤣🤣 Another great video from PBS 👍

Absolutely hilarious and great information!

Worf: "Prune juice.... a warrior's drink."

Wonderful hostess and lessons. Great content! I love it.

Love this. Thanks!

I'd heard long ago that "PUMPERNICKEL" had a Germanic origin. According to this story, 'pumper' was an old-fashioned word for "breaking wind", & one of many euphemisms for the Devil was "Old Nick", so from this, we conclude that this member of the Rye family of bread-grains was so VERY coarse that it could cause even "Old Nick" himself to fart!

6:04 suddenly it's the 90s and my bowels are moving quickly to the beat as I contemplate the uni I am about to eat.

Fantastic video, I thoroughly enjoyed that 👍

5:50 In hebrew prunes (and plums in general) always had their moment in the sun, as the words for plum and the sun's gaze have the same root. (And the Hebrew Language Academy uses the same image of a plum sunbathing due to this on its webpage...)

I get so excited everytime your videos pop up in my feed.. I wish I had more like buttons to smash

Very cool. I learned so much!

5:40 "Prune juice, chilled. A warrior's drink."

An American friend who grew up in Buenos Aires before coming back to the US to go to college tells the story of meeting her new roommates during freshman orientation week, and them suggesting that they go out for tacos. My friend was very confused about why they should go eat shoe heels.

6:00 You made me choke on my drink LOL!

"Totally regular" "Join the movement" is not what I expected from PBS 🤣

Reccao, an herb we use in Puerto Rican cooking, is believed to come for the word for runners who would get fresh herbs from the market.

I love this host, and the title track, very addictive

Let's 'dig in.' I see what you did there. LOVE IT!!!

New video! I love this series :)

You just know Dr. Brozovsky would be a blast to have around at parties... as long as they're not Scrabble parties.

This show is my legit favorite thing on youtube!! lol, it's funny as a kid I hated PBS and wanted to just consume commercial garbage, now as a middle-aged man I'm all about these kinds of things :P

BC Canadian "Dog Fish" (a small Brown Shark) Their bellies meat were cut out and smoked and sold in the UK as "Rock Salmon".

Great work 🥳 Thank you 💜

This was fun! I'm just wishing there was more definitive answers to the story bits. I always hated cliffhangers. 🙃

oh I just love this channel ! And Dr. Erica is such a cool & amazing educator ! And she looks like a Filipina ! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤍💖

I love this channel!

The Welsh Rabbit my Father made always contained Worcestershire Sauce also. Great episode as always Thanks ✌

I know of at least one person who, when baffled by a menu containing a number of items she didn't recognize, saw "sweetbreads" and thought it was a pastry of some kind, and was not thrilled about what was actually served to her.

Hey Dr. B, when are we going to get another Otherwords video? They're great!

This is awesome!! As a chef and aspiring linguist this checks all my boxes!!!!