[Sca-cooks] Turkish delight

[Terry Decker]

> I wrote:
>>> ...Hans Dernschwam in
>>> 1553 called it "strong flour" since there was no German word for it. In
>>> the 18th century wheat starch was known as "hair powder", since its only
>>> use was for powdering wigs. By the 19th it was used for stiffening linen
>>> and eventually returned to uses in cuisine.
>
> Bear replied
>> This may be a questionable assertion about Dernschwamm. The German word 
>> for
>> starch is "Sta:rke." The German word for strong is "stark." Both words
>> derive from the Old High German "starchi." Modernly, starch powder is
>> "Sta:rkemehl" and strong flour is "starkes Mehl." Since the German of 
>> 1553
>> is not standardized, it may be difficult to determine precisely what is
>> being stated. 1553 is also roughly 100 years after the noun starch comes
>> into use in English. Before I accept the assertion that there was no word
>> for starch in German, I'd really like to see the evidence presented.
>
> Her statement on p. 163 is footnoted, and the endnote on p. 278 says:
> Dernschwam, Hans, Tabebuch Einer Reise Nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien 
> (1553-1555), ed. Franz Babinger (Munchen and Leipzig, 1923), p. 124, 
> 'Krafft meel'.
>
>> BTW, the terms Amelmehl (emmer powder) and Kraftmehl (strong or powerful
>> powder) have also been used to refer dialectically to starch. Amelmehl is
>> sometimes translated as amidon.
>
> Thank you, Bear. That makes things clearer.
>
> Someone sometimes called Uratim (that's oor-tah-TEEM)

It's been fun researching this.  Hans Dernschwam was a Bohemian who at the 
time he wrote the diary was working as a Fugger agent.  He was highly 
educated and well travelled.  As a guess, his German would have been the 
Scho:nbrunner Deutsch of the educated and socially upwardly mobile 
Austro-Hungarian.

His use of the term Kraftmehl may be an artifact of his Bohemian upbringing. 
The word has been transferred into a number of Slavic languages probably 
during the German migration into the Slavic following the Mongol invasions 
in the 13th Century.  As a Bohemian, he likely spoke both Bohemian (Czech) 
and the local form of German.

Bear