SC - Qata'if -- duck and bread
david friedman
ddfr at best.com
Wed Aug 30 10:33:54 PDT 2000
At 10:03 AM -0400 8/30/00, Philip & Susan Troy wrote:
>david friedman wrote:
>>
>> Puzzle:
>>
>> How many different things (in and out of period) are called "Harisa,"
>> and what is the connection?
>
>Or, to put it another way, sometimes a cigar is just not a cigar. It
>might be better to speak of differences, rather than similarities,
>between the known definitions of harissa. I'm only aware of two, one
>being a meat, vegetable, and, I think, grain stew, the other being a
>chili pepper sauce. Possibilities for why these two different items
>share a name might include:
>
>1. Corruption and equivocation of names (as with the goulash that is
>really nothing more than a freshly-made, and hopefully higher-quality,
>version of the canned product, Beef-a-Roni)
>
>2. Similarity of names from different languages
>
>3. The possibility (understand that I speak neither Persian nor Arabic)
>that the name means "stew", and that the chili sauce is derived from a
>chili pepper stew (such dishes do exist in Spain, Portugal, Italy,
>France, and the Basque country, so perhaps the modern sauce is descended
>from a North African original)
>
>4. The harissa sauce may be intended to be served with the stew, and has
>taken its name from it, although then I wonder why it isn't called couscous.
"Harisa" is also the name of a pastry that is sometimes available in
modern middle-eastern restaurants.
I have been told that the root word means "wheat," which presumably
would explain the first and the third. Possibly the chili pepper
sauce is intended to be served over wheat?
- --
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
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