May 22, 2005

What part of a horse is that, anyway?

A day-old baguette and a soft cheese constitute my dinner. The cheese container had a label in French, German, and Dutch, but I couldn't make out the flavour from any of those (and am not quite sure why I bought it, other than the illustration on the sticker looked appealing). Now I know that raifort means* 'horseradish' and that is a very odd thing to put into a soft cheese. I do, however, fondly recall a horseradish cheddar I ate a few years ago. From Wikipedia:


It has been speculated that the word is a partial translation of its German name Meerrettich. The element Meer (meaning 'ocean, sea') is pronounced like the English word mare, which might have been reinterpreted as horseradish. On the other hand, many English plant names have "horse" as an element denoting strong or coarse, so the etymology of the English word (which is attested in print from at least 1597) is uncertain.


*(Oddly, Google could translate from the French into the German, and from the French into English, but not from German into English.)

Posted to deep-fried by salim at 09:02 PM