A HARTE APPETITE: LOBSTER NEWBURG BY ANY OTHER NAME...

"What's in a name?" asks Romeo, gazing upon Juliet on her balcony. Apparently plenty, as any lexicographer will tell you.

Dr. Peter Hilty, who for years taught English at Southeast Missouri State University, observes that words come from somewhere. "The outright creation of a word is rare," he says, and this is certainly true when it comes to words about food.

Consider, for example, the word pumpernickel. According to Webster's, it comes from two German terms: pumpern, to pass wind, and Nickel, a goblin. Etymologists explain that the name refers to the bread's presumed ability to produce flatulence worthy of the devil himself.

Not all food words have origins this intriguing, but the study of how foods got their names can be fascinating. Moreover, as Hilty notes, "We are creatures who use words, and the more we know about words, the more we know about ourselves." Dr. Henry Sessoms, a colleague of Hilty's who teaches a course in the history of the English language, agrees. He points out that studying English words is particularly illuminating because our language is arguably the most accepting of foreign terms. And this is increasingly true as our population grows more diverse. Interestingly enough, our national motto, "E pluribus unum," first appeared in an ancient Roman recipe for salad. Today, perhaps not coincidentally, authorities on multiculturalism argue that the salad bowl is a better metaphor than the melting pot to describe America.

Martha Barnette, a writer who studied classical languages for a dozen years, has compiled a delicious work entitled "Ladyfingers and Nun's Tummies" that tantalizingly chronicles the origins of hundreds of food related terms. (The word tantalize, by the way, derives from Tantalus, who in Greek mythology stole the gods' ambrosia and as punishment was consigned to an eternity in which food and water were always just out of reach.) As Barnette demonstrates in her book, there are "unforgettable pictures and surprising tales tucked into the words we put into our mouths every day."

Sometimes it takes considerable sleuthing to determine what those tales are. Take canape, for example. In French it means couch, Barnette explains, and, indeed, an edible canape is a piece of bread or toast upon which other items sit. But the word goes all the way back to the Greek term "konopion," for a bed or couch surrounded by mosquito netting, which in turn derives from the Greek "konops," meaning gnat or mosquito.

In other cases the relationship between a food and its name is pretty clear. For instance, many foods are named for what they look like. Thus eggplant is so named because the white variety resembles eggs. Likewise, the Italian word "orecchietti" means "little ears" and refers to a pasta of similar shape. The word "pretzel" can be traced back through the German "brezel" to the Medieval Latin word "brachitellum" meaning "little arm," a reference to the fact that pretzels are supposed to resemble arms folded in prayer. The word avocado is a direct descendant of the Aztec word "ahuacatl" which denotes an avocado-shaped portion of the male anatomy. (Mash the avocado, add the Aztec word for sauce, "molli," and with a little modification you get "guacamole.")

Among the more interesting derivations of food words are those derived from misunderstandings. These, says Barnette, can often show how language works. Cherries and peas are good examples. Both are the consequence of what linguists call "back-formation," one type of which involves the mistaken assumption that a singular word is actually plural. It was this confusion that led to the British using the word "cheri" instead of the Norman "cherise" and the word "pea" instead of the Middle English "pease" to refer to individual specimens of those foods.

Sometimes changes in pronunciation can be misleading. For instance, those candy-coated nuts, Jordan almonds, are not from Jordan as their name might suggest. Their name actually derives from an anglicized pronunciation of the Old French word "jardin" for garden. Similarly, Cold Duck, the German sparkling wine, started out as Kalte Ende or "cold end," possibly suggesting that it should be drunk at the end of the day or after a meal. Before long the word "ende" was corrupted to "ente," which means duck. Sometimes the naming process simply invites misunderstanding regardless of grammar and pronunciation. German chocolate, for example, has nothing to do with Germany, being named instead for its creator Samuel German.

Foods named for people are perhaps the easiest to trace. As Barnette shows, these "edible eponyms" abound. There's Salisbury steak developed by Dr. James Salisbury, an advocate of shredded food; Fettucine Alfredo invented by an Italian restaurateur of the same name and made famous by Hollywood stars; the Cobb salad, invented by none other than Bob Cobb, a Los Angeles restaurant owner; bananas Foster, a dessert dreamed up by Brennan's restaurant in New Orleans to honor a regular customer, Richard Foster, an awning salesman; and the beef, mushroom, and sour cream dish named in honor of the 19th century Russian diplomat Count Paul Stroganoff, not to mention the Sandwich, Earl Grey tea, the Napoleon, and Beef Wellington.

Perhaps the most successful developer of dishes named after people was the legendary New York restaurant Delmonico's, which often created specialties in honor of its customers. It is credited with devising eggs Benedict for Mrs. LeGrand Benedict, chicken a la Keene (later chicken a la king) for Foxhall P. Keene, and Lobster Newburg. The latter was really the creation of a wealthy shipping magnate named Benjamin Wenburg and for a while the dish was called Lobster Wenburg. However, after Wenburg took part in a drunken brawl in the dining room, the name was altered.

As this feast of words illustrates, etymology can often provide real food for thought. As Barnette notes, when words, in the phrase of poet Owen Barfield, are "made to disgorge the past that is bottled up inside of them," we learn how our predecessors tried to make sense out of the world. And, I'd add, where food words are concerned, we develop a deeper appreciation for what we eat. Whether you're a food lover or a word lover, I hope you find the following recipes appetizing.

Linguine with Lobster

Linguine ought to be the lexicographer's favorite pasta because it is Italian for "little tongues" and is related to words like language, linguist, and lingo. This recipe, an upscale version of the clam linguine we thrived on in graduate school days, is from Diane Seed's "Italian Cooking with Olive Oil."

Ingredients:

2 (1 1/2 pound) live lobsters

3 tablespoons delicate extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

8 ripe plum tomatoes (1 pound), peeled, seeded, and finely chopped

1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 pound linguine

salt and pepper

Directions:

Partially cook lobsters covered in rapidly boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain, cool, remove meat and cut into 1/2-inch pieces, reserving juices. Heat oil over medium heat, add garlic, and cook until barely colored, about 1 minute. Stir in tomatoes and parsley, bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low, and cook for 10 minutes. Add lobster and its juices and cook for another 3 minutes. Meanwhile cook linguine in boiling water until barely tender. Drain, toss with lobster sauce, and season with salt and pepper. Serves 4-6.

Saltimbocca

The name of this dish is a contraction of the Italian "salta in bocca" or "it leaps into the mouth" because it is so tasty. The name comes from the Latin "saltare," meaning to leap or jump, which is also the basis for the French word "saute," or "jumped," a reference to how the contents of the pan should be tossed during this cooking procedure. This recipe is from Rosso and Lukins' "The New Basics Cookbook."

Ingredients:

8 ounces veal scallopine (4 pieces), pounded thin

4 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese shavings

4 thin slices prosciutto, cut to fit scallopine

4 fresh sage leaves

1/3 cup dry Italian white wine

1 teaspoon minced fresh sage leaves

Directions:

Season veal with salt and pepper and dust with flour, shaking off excess. In large skillet saute veal in 2 tablespoons butter over medium-high heat until lightly browned, 1 minute per side. Transfer to baking dish and sprinkle cheese over. Cover each slice of veal with 1 slice pro sciutto and a sage leaf. Bake at 375 degrees until cooked through, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, add wine to skillet, cook over high heat scraping up brown bits until reduced to 3 tablespoons. Lower heat and swirl in remaining butter and minced sage. Arrange veal on plate and pour sauce over. Serves 2.

Sweet Hominy Chimichangas with Fruit Purees

The origin of the word chimichanga, a fried burrito, is uncertain, though the Dictionary of American Food and Drink reports that it may be based on an expletive involving a monkey ("changa" means female monkey in Spanish) which is unsuitable for printing in a family newspaper. That analysis is perhaps compatible with the story that the first of these treats was the result of an accident in which a cook dropped a burrito into hot fat and yelled, "Chimichanga!" This recipe for a dessert chimichanga comes from "The Well-Filled Tortilla Cookbook" by Victoria Wise and Susanna Hoffman.

Ingredients:

1 (29-ounce) can white hominy, drained

4 teaspoons powdered sugar

2 tablespoons whipping cream

1 pint strawberries, hulled

2 ripe mangos, peeled and pitted

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

6 flour tortillas

Directions:

Puree hominy, stir in powdered sugar and cream and place 1/3 cup of the mixture in the center of each tortilla. Fold up envelope style. Puree strawberries and the mangos. Melt butter and brown sugar in skillet until butter foams and sugar melts, stirring to blend. Add filled tortillas and fry one minute per side. To serve, spoon strawberry puree over one end of each chimichanga and mango puree over the other.

Got a culinary question you'd like to ask or an idea you'd like to see treated in this column? Send your suggestions to A Harte Appetite, c/o The Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, MO., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semovm.semo.edu.