SC - OT Dogs vs Cats...

[Lady Elisabeth]

Nick Sasso wrote:
> 
>         Blanc desire
>         blank de surry
>         blank desure
>         blank de syry
>         Blank dessorre
>         blank desire

> Looking at Margrittes list of aka's for this dish, they seem to have a
> sound pattern.  Blanc Desire could easily have been an Anglicanization
> of another language's title.

Possibly, but then that would argue against "desire" having the same
meaning that it does to us, not for it. Depending on whether you mean
that "desire" is a perfectly good word in Arabic, or that a similar dish
is called, in some other language, something that translates into
English as "White Yummy Stuff", can you provide some evidence for either
scenario? Blancmanger dishes appear in English, French, German, Spanish
and Italian sources, and perhaps some others I'm not aware of, but I
haven't seen any evidence of a dish either called by the name "Blank
Desire", or called anything that might translate as that in English from
another language, in any but English sources. The only other instances I
can find of using the word "desire", or something close to it, in any
culinary sense are in other dishes similarly named (and made) but for
their color, such as Vert Desire. This doesn't appear to be a
quantifiable trend, even if one assumes, for the sake of convenience,
that the obvious uses of the word "desire" (in exactly one third of the
instances) constitute a trend.  

Now, I'm not saying the word doesn't refer to something that is desired.
I don't know. However, so far the best evidence that's been raised to
support that claim is that it might seem like common sense, which isn't
always how it works. Austin, editor of the Two Fifteenth Century
Cookery-Books, and the OED both seem to agree, rightly or wrongly, that
the basis of the name is the word "sorrell", referring to a red color. I
don't buy that either, but it demonstrates that there are several
theories and that we don't really know which one is the case, based on
the available evidence.   
 
> The theory I posit is that someone
> experienced a dish in exotic mediterranean land, brought back athe
> description and the 'name' to be recreated by a local cuisiner by his
> understanding of the description and availability of foodstuffs
> locally.

That would make sense, too, as a possibility. All we need to do now is
find evidence of the dish in its prior form, and the chronology of the
names given above don't clearly indicate an intentional use of the word
"desire" and a gradual evolutionary shift away from it over time.

Ah, well...

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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