Food Neologisms...
Many of the foods we consume have double or sometimes triple names such as: rockfish/striped bass; chevon/goat; branzino/Mediterranean seabass, and so on. Perhaps it is for cosmetic purposes, point of derivation, or scientific in nature. There are a lot of food neologisms out there. Serious Eaters: have any others? Help me fill in the list...
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12 Comments:
Patagonian toothfish -> Chilean sea bass
Don Luis at 10:46AM on 04/02/09
dolphin fish/mahi-mahi which I should say very much confused my mom. She came back from a trip to Hawaii insisting to everyone that "they eat dolphin there!"
drew13000 at 10:49AM on 04/02/09
scallions/green onions
tomatoes/tomatoes (ok, I could not think of anything else ;)
orchidgirl at 11:13AM on 04/02/09
arugula / rucola / rocket comes to mind--and 'arugula' really is a (semi-)neologism, as it didn't appear until the second half of the 20th c.
annatr at 11:20AM on 04/02/09
buffalo or bull testicles -> Rocky Mountain oysters (or prairie oysters)
Don Luis at 11:40AM on 04/02/09
kiwi/Chinese gooseberry
Jerusalem artichoke/sunchoke
eggplant/aubergine
meem21 at 11:43AM on 04/02/09
Zucchini = Courgette
jcrisco at 1:22PM on 04/02/09
Sorry to be a stickler, but I don't see how most of these examples are neologisms at all--they're just different terms for the same things.
annatr at 2:04PM on 04/02/09
Actually, rocket, aubergine and courgette are all names I grew up with, so I wouldn't consider them "food neologisms"... I think it's one thing when Patagonian toothfish is called Chilean sea bass for marketing reasons (same thing with dolphin fish and mahi mahi - yes, my MIL is also convinced that it's actually dolphin, so I can see why they would want to call it something else), and a whole different thing when different words have "always" existed in different countries to denote the same thing.
brooke29 at 2:35PM on 04/02/09
Practically every cut of beef has a different name regionally. Eg. New York Steak = Strip Steak; butcher's tenderloin = hanger steak; and on and on. There's an entire little book dedicated to sorting out the names: THE MEAT BOARD MEAT BOOK, by Barbara Bloch. It was written in 1977, and surprisingly nothing much has changed!
Gourmet Guy at 4:16PM on 04/02/09
Just to clarify:
ne⋅ol⋅o⋅gism
1. a *new* word, meaning, usage, or phrase.
2. the introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words.
I think 'stuffed crust' could count as a neologism. It seems to have pervaded the lexicon, yet it is a new phrase that is now used beyond just the brand name of Pizza Hut.
laurelie at 4:34PM on 04/02/09
crawfish/mudbugs
nightmoon at 9:14AM on 04/03/09