[Sca-cooks] Kippers and Toad-in-the-hole

[johnna holloway]

The new Middle English Dictionary that is being
compiled states:

kipre (n.) Also kiper, kippre.[?OE cypera]
(a) The male salmon or sea trout during the spawning season; ?also the female
during the same season; (b) ?the salmon, sea trout, and possibly other fish
which have been cured by salting and smoking.
selected quotes are
(a)  (1376) RParl.  2.331b:  Qe null Salmon soit pris en Tamise entre
Graveshend & le Pount de Henlee sur Tamise en temps q'il soit kiper: C'est
assavoir, entre les Festes de l'Invention del Crois & le Epiphanie.
(b)  (1326) Acc.R.Dur.in Sur.Soc.99   15:  Month 3, week 3, In 11 Kypres emp.,
3 s. 4 d.  (1333-4) Acc.R.Dur.in Sur.Soc.99   19:  In j salmone, playces, et
lopsters, et iij kyppres salsis, iij s. viij d.

No mention of color---

Copper as a color seems to come from
copred (ppl.)[From cper copper.]
?Copper-colored.
a1500 Weights in RHS ser.3.41 (Vsp E.9)   18:  By this weyght ys sold copred
and grey wax.

What source note is American Heritage giving for their entry?
Were they really copper-colored during spawning or are they copper-colored
after being prepared by drying and salting?

Johnnae llyn Lewis


Darren Gasser wrote:

> johnna holloway wrote:
> > OED indicates that kipper comes from:
> > A name given to the male salmon (or sea trout) during the spawning
> > season. (The female is then called a shedder.)
> Other sources indicate that the term originated as a color description, not
> a culinary one.  From The American Heritage, for example:
> "Middle English kipre, from Old English cypera, spawning male salmon,
> probably from cyperen, of copper, from coper, copper (because of the fish's
> color during the spawning season)."
> -Lorenz
>
>