What is in A Name ?

What is In a Name?

For sure you are all familiar with the name of various kinds food below. But have you ever wondered how they got their names?

1. Margherita Pizza

 

Are you a pizza lover? Have you tried a very patriotic Italian pizza called margherita? You can easily spot this kind of pizza by looking at its topping that symbolizes the Italian flag: red (tomato), white (mozzarella), and green (basil). In 1889, the Italian Queen Consort, Margherita of Savoy, visited Naples and was served this pizza. That’s how it got it’s name.

 

2. Chicken Tandoori

This Indian traditional food is made of chicken marinated in yogurt and uses some Indian seasoning. This food is cooked at high temperatures in a tandoor (clay oven). That’s why it’s called chicken tandoori.

3. Corned Beef

A long time ago, salt was the only thing used to preserve food without cooking it first. Ath the time, people in England like to put meat in a large clay container and covered meat with big amounts of salt

That referred to as ‘corn of salt’. From then on, the term corned beef has stuck. The word ‘corned’ has been in The Oxford English Dictionary as early as 888 AD.

4. Hamburger

This kind of food that’s commonly associated with the US actually originates from Russia. In medieval times Russian people liked to eat shredded raw meat seasoned with salt, pepper, and onion. German sailors who happened to visit Baltic ports liked the food and brought the recipe back to Hamburg, Germany. That’s how it go it’s name – hamburger. But the Germans liked the meat grilled better than raw. In the 19^th century, German immigrants took the recipe with them to America. In, 1990, Louis Larsen, an American, served the dish between two slices of bread and the American hamburger was born.

5. Sandwich

The idea of eating meat between bread was first introduced by the Romans over 1000 years ago. But the name of this food was taken from a British politician called John Montague, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), who had a habit of eating beef between two slices of toast so he could play cards without stopping to eat.

6. Hot Dog

In the 19^th century, a man called Harry Stevens sold Frankfurter sausages at a baseball stadium in the USA. Since the sausages were hot, he put them in bread rolls. Harry gave the nickname, dachshund to the sausages because of their similar shapes. Ted Dorgan, a sport cartoonist, drew Harry’s stall, but he couldn’t spell dachshund so he used the term hot dog instead. And the name hot dog has been used until now.

7. Tempura

This famous Japanese food originates from Portugal. It was first introduced to Japan in the mid-16^th century by Portuguese missionaries and traders. The word tempura may be derived from the Portuguese word tempero, which means spicy condiment or peppery seasoning. Funnily, a Portugal dish that’s very similar to tempura is not called tempura, but peixinhos de harta, which literally means fish from the garden.


Taken from C' n S vol. 10