OT: culinary etymology

The other night, while preparing the classic Spanish tapa gambas al ajillo (shrimp in garlic sauce) my mind turned to the numerous names given the shrimp/prawn in the various European languages I know something about:

English: shrimp/prawn French: crevette German: garnele Spanish: gamba/camaron Italian: gambero

What's striking about this list is the lack of cognates aside from gamba/gambero. The English "shrimp," my dictionary tells me, is derived from a Danish/Swedish root (damn Vikings!), but the divergence among the Latin languages is interesting. Usually, such a divergence implies the lack of a Latinate origin for the word, but is it conceivable that the Romans didn't have a word for an (edible) organism that was plentiful in the waters surrounding Italy? I am truly perplexed and seeking any enlightenment that you gastronome/linguists can offer.

Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton
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I know little about the other languages, but Italian has *many* names for shrinp-like creatures. Besides gambero, there are gamberelli, gamberetti, gamberoni, canocchie, ganocchio, pannocchie, scampi, and sparnocchie.

Reply to
Ken Blake

Add mazzancolle.

Shrimp in my venetian dialect are called "schie" (pron. "ski-ay", probably the same root as shrimp).

Mike

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

Mark,

No help on the etymology front sadly. Pointing out merely that "gambas" is also a French word, usually referring to parkerized shrimp in my experience. :)

-E

Reply to
Emery Davis

I thought that 'Parkerized shrimp' was 'lobster'.

Reply to
uraniumcommittee

Yes, thanks. I knew about those words, but had forgotten them.

I've had Schie in Venice. The ones I had were tiny--you could fit many on a single teaspoon. I thought the word referred only to those tiny ones. Am I wrong? Does it refer to all sizes of shrimp?

Reply to
Ken Blake

There must be dozens of species of these little critters, which may in part explain the differences in terminology.

Reply to
uraniumcommittee

More like the "crevettes grises" that one finds in France, small but not quite that small...

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

Mark Lipton wrote in news:p8JVf.886703$xm3.395354@attbi_s21:

My Webster's New World has "ME. schrimpe, shrimp, puny person < base of OE. scrimman (akin to Germ. schrimpfen), to shrink, dry up < IE base (s)kemb-, to turn, twist, shrink)" Note that last one. :D

And an interesting post from Lowlands-L from a million years ago(okay,

1999)...
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P81

I am hungry, now... d.

Reply to
enoavidh

I think it's one of those cases where the word predates indo-european. We see the same thing with the word for "grape". In most European and Mediterranean languages the "grape" differs greatly from one language to another, while the word for "wine" is very similar. The theory being that local words for "grape" remained, while the borrowed technology and subsequent product "wine" carried the forreign name of it's originators, whoever they may be. The grape was indigenous to much of Europe, but wine wasn't. Hence the interesting nomenclature. I think prawns, gamberi et al. are local terms for creatures humans caught since pre-history, the recent history of Romance languages notwithstanding.

It would be interesting if we posted this to sci.lang.

Marcello

Reply to
Marcello Fabretti

Reply to
Joe "Beppe"Rosenberg

skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...

LOL! You are improving! Anders

Reply to
Anders Tørneskog
Reply to
Anders Tørneskog

Thanks.

Reply to
Ken Blake

That makes great sense, Marcello. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that you've got the right end of the stick. Now that I think about it, many foods fall into that category.

Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton

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