[Sca-cooks] Re:empanadas

[Vincent Cuenca]

>
>Nope-nope-nope! Yes, empanadas are often, and commercially, almost
>always, filled with meat, but it's like saying pies are filled with
>meat. Or fruit. Or cheese. Or whatever. Their "essential empanadaness"
>lies in the fact that they are a filled pastry. Not a Spanish speaker to
>any real extent, I would guess at the etymology to be something like,
>"FOOD X 'in panada' ", or something in paste.
>
>Adamantius, who likes queso blanco or cream cheese with quince or guava
>paste in his
>--
>Phil & Susan Troy

You're pretty much right there.  The root word is "pan" meaning bread.
There isn't much distinction drawn in Spanish between short doughs and
leavened doughs, so anything wrapped in dough is (linguistically speaking)
"en pan" or "in bread".  The suffix -ada can be used to describe a
technique, so "empanada de X" means "X wrapped in dough in a particular
manner". Sounds like what we got here is empanadas dulces, or sweet
turnovers.  Oh yummers. :-)

Vicente
(likes his with pumpkin filling, and gets them from the Panaderia Azteca on
Cherokee Street)

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp