SC - "paella" originally means 'pan'

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Thomas Gloning wrote:
> 
> << OK, to specifics. Some evidence suggests the word "paella" is derived
> from Indo-European roots meaning, simply, "rice", but which have come to
> refer as well to a cooking process common from India and southern Russia
> through the Middle East and across North Africa -- (...) >>
> 
> I think the name of the dish is derived from the Catalan/ Valencian word
> "paella" 'pan'.
> 
> French "paelle" ('pan, cooking vessel') is used in the Enseignements, in
> the Menagier and the Viandier. More important: Catalan "paella" is used
> in the Libre de Sent Sovi (also in the variant form "pella") and in the
> Catalan version of De Nola in the sense 'pan'. In one of the Spanish De
> Nola parallel recipes, I looked up, the Spanish word used instead of
> Catalan "paella" is "sarten" 'pan'. A Catalan-German vocabulary printed
> in 1502 has an entry "Pella Pfann" (Paella 'pan') in the chapter about
> kitchen stuff.
> 
> Thus it seems to me that the name of the Spanish dish paella is derived
> from the Catalan/ Valencian expression _paella_, _pella_, used to refer
> to the pan in which the dish is made.
> 
> Thomas
> (The next step would be to look up Corominas, the Diccionari Català,
> Valencià, Balear, and others, but I don't have them here.)

Yes, I saw that "paelle" and "paele" seem to be used to denote a pan in
the Enseignements, and that certainly is a possibility, but then where
does that leave words like pilau and its variants, which could have made
it to Spain across North Africa from Persia? Presumably one or the other
is a coincidence, and then it wouldn't explain why every dish called
paella is always based on rice (at least now, and as far as I know).
Unless a paelle is a pan used to cook rice, named for the grain? This
would be consistent with, say, a tripier (a clay pot with a narrow
mouth, traditionally used for tripe).

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying.

Adamantius (confused now, my confusion not abated by my elation at
seeing the O.E.D. and Larousse discredited) 
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com