[Sca-cooks] Weird words in baklava ingredients

[Sharon Gordon]

(With help from
http://www.ectaco.com/online/diction.php3?refid=1904&lang=3&word=&direction=
2 )

1)intrigued him were: Botanistquail

The word for botanist in Arabic also translates to vegetarian

The word for quail in Arabic besides translating into quail can be
nouns: shell, cheese
verbs:wilt, consume, wither, flag, decay,   ETIOLATE;  SHRIVEL;   QUAIL;
LANGUISH;  SEAR;  CONSUME;
TREMBLE;  SHAKE;  QUAKE;  QUAVER;   CHILL;  DITHER;  QUIVER;  SHIVER;
SHUDDER;  JAR;  PALPITATE; FUNK;
adjectives: wizen

While I would ask someone who speaks Arabic to translate the Arabic and
match it up to the English, my top choices for Botanistquail would be
Vegetarian-consume (or OK for vegetarians to eat), Vegetarian cheese(though
I  have never seen cheese in baklava, just in spanikopita like things), or
perhaps as longer shots some sort of dried herbs or greens (not sure what
that would be for baklava) from the idea of wilted botanicals or a spice
that is made from the shell of the plant (nut shell?, bark?) such as nutmeg,
allspice, or cinnamon.

2)and Sprungboosing

The word for sprung in Arabic can translate into
Verbs: GERMINATE;  GROWING;  SPRING;  SPROUT;  SPRUNG;  VEGETATE
Adjectives: Sprung

Consider that the word might be Spring, like in Spring Wheat.  But I could
also see it meaning sprouted something or fresh something.  And given that
it's baklava, I could also see it meaning something like puffed as in puffed
pastry leaves.  And I could also see it being a word for whatever kind of
nut is in the pastry, that being the future growing sprout of the nut tree.

Didn't get anywhere with boosing.
Tried boozing--and got various things related to drunkenness.  Considered
that it might have something to do with fermentation or leavening.  If it's
Arabic, actual alcohol isn't likely to be involved.  The only other thing I
could think of if they meant boozing, would be that something was saturated
in a liquid.  In baklava this is often done by saturating the pastry layers
and nuts with honey syrup.

**************
The above guesses may be of the same quality of the translations you have
already :-).  If you can find an Arabic speaking person, preferably one who
cooks and knows English cooking words, I am sure you could get a better
translation.  Or if you could even get help locating the actual Arabic word
on the wrapper if it has ingredient lists in multiple languages, you might
have better luck looking up that actual word in the dictionary and seeing
the English options.  Or maybe you could put a scan of the Arabic and
English portions of the wrapper up for people to pass along to other
friends.

While I was trying to puzzle this out, I started thinking about the poor SCA
member in 2503 who is trying to reconstruct baklava as it was made in the
2000's from this wrapper found during an archeological excavation in the
2000-2010 layer of an Atlantia landfill :-).  Perhaps she is seeking a
substitute for the obviously extinct Botanistquail bird, and wondering what
sort of nuts to use in place of the alcoholic nuts of the also extinct
Sprungboosing tree???

Sharon
gordonse at one.net