Food words

[changeling]

I love Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and Bartleby.com for putting it online.

Food
Sir Walter Scott remarks that live cattle go by Saxon names, and slain meat by Norman-French, a standing evidence that the Normans were the lords who ate the meat, and the Saxons the serfs who tended the cattle. Examples:

Sheep Ox Calf Hog Pig (Saxon).
Mutton Beef Veal Bacon Pork (Norman-French).

Meat, Bread.

These words tell a tale; both mean food in general. The Italians and Asiatics eat little animal food, and with them the word bread stands for food; so also with the poor, whose chief diet it is; but the English consume meat very plentifully, and this word, which simply means food, almost exclusively implies animal food [...] (emphasis mine)

Oh, and this is my favourite. We shouldn't call it the Fatkins diet, we should call it the Banting diet:

Doing Banting. Reducing superfluous fat by living on meat diet, and abstaining from beer, farinaceous food, and vegetables, according to the method adopted by William Banting, a London cabinet-maker, once a very fat man (born 1796, died 1878). The word was introduced about 1864.

This is all due to the fact that I'm planning on setting up my food blog on my website. I've been humming and hawing over a title. I thought of calling it Scaramouche's Kitchen (just because I really like the name – Scaramouche is a character from the Commedia Dell'arte, a roguish adventurer who replaced Il Capitano in later troupes), then I thought of calling it Belly-timber: “And now, Dame Peveril, to dinner, to dinner. The old fox must have his belly-timber, though the hounds have been after him the whole day.”—Sir W. Scott. Peveril of the Peak, and at the moment I'm leaning towards Eat not the Heart, from Pythagoras:

Pythagoras forbade judges and priests to eat animal food at all, because it was taking away life. Other persons he did not wholly forbid this food, but he restricted them from eating the brain (the seat of wisdom) and the heart (the seat of life).

I still like Belly-timber. Has an almost pirate edge to it. Also, I do want to have a memorable title to my blog! Otherwise what will happen when I have a spin-off book? *grins*

So now, the poll! Also, do not hesitate from discussing further in comments. I like discussion.

[Poll #753342]

Edit: Apparently "Eat not the heart" in its original form was "Cor ne edito". This amuses me, due to my chosen field.
And woe! There is already a blog called "Belly Timber".

Comments

[ebonbird.livejournal.com]

This is way cool. I love food, and I'll try anything twice, but this post pleases me in a myriad of ways. May I link to it?

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Of course! Be my guest.