[Sca-cooks] Gingerbread

Johnna Holloway johnnae at mac.com
Mon Dec 15 04:15:54 PST 2008


OED lists wastel as:
*wastel* wo/enticons/ogon.gif.st'l. Obs. exc. Hist. Forms:  wastell, (
vastell),  wastelle, (wastle, wastyl(le, wastil), Sc. wastell, - wastel;

also, by confusion with /wassail/,  wassell.

[a. OFr. /wastel/,
north-eastern var. of /guastel/, /gastel/ (mod.Fr. /gâteau/). In
Anglo-L. records the word often occurs latinized as /guastellum/,
/wastellum/: see examples under simnel and treat.

Defined then as "Bread made of the finest flour; a cake or loaf of this
bread" which goes back to the 12th century.

2.  Her. = torteau

1. and torteau means [a. Fr. /tourteau/ `a large round cake or flat
bannock of bread', a mass of oilcake, a wooden disk used as a crusher,
and in heraldry as below; in OFr. /tortel/ (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.),

    * *1486* /Bk. St. Albans, Coat-arm./ b iv b, Tortlettis be calde in
      armys wastell.
    * *1562* Leigh /Armorie/ 151 b, He beareth or, x torteauxes... These
      haue been called of olde blazoures, wastelles, and are cakes of
      breade.


*2. * A flat cake, a pancake. Obs.

(Cf. quot. 1562 in 1.) *1625* Purchas /Pilgrims/ II. ix. xix.
/enticons/sect.gif3. 1652 Torteaux and Bignets, and many other sorts of
food... They make pottage, and Torteaux and Galletus.



Johnnae


Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius wrote:
>
> On Dec 15, 2008, at 2:43 AM, lilinah at earthlink.net wrote:
>
>> Adamantius wrote"  Isn't that "wastel bread"? I thought it was...
>>> If so, it's a fine, cakelike white bread eaten by the wealthy. I'm
>>> wondering if perhaps "wastel" and "gateau" share a common French
>>> root...
>>
>> I lack an French dictionary that gives etymologies, however it seems 
>> highly likely.
>>
>> Gateau has a circumflex over the first "a" indicating it was 
>> originally followed by an "s". Additionally quite a few modern French 
>> words that end in "eau" ended with "el" in Medieval times, such as 
>> modern "chateau" from Medieval "chastel". So now we can say that it 
>> may well have been "gastel". And since French doesn't use a "w", a 
>> "g" sometimes replaces a "w" in words that came from another language.
>>
>> So while "wastel" may not (or may) have originally French, it's 
>> likely that "wastel" and "gateau" are related.
>
> The dropping of the "s", as in etude/study, hotel/hostel, 
> hopital/hospital, etc., is fairly common in word pairs appearing in 
> both French and English, and the G-W transposition is pretty common, 
> as well, as in Guillaume/William, gaufrette, etc.
> Most dictionaries appear to suggest that the French gateau derives 
> from the Frankish and, in turn, Germanic, wastil, which appears to 
> derive from proto-Indo-European terms meaning nourishment or food. 
> Yeah, okay ;-)
> Adamantius
>
>




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