Okay, okay, so I'm obsessed with anthropomorphism! There are worse vices! Currently, I'm looking for words used for vegetables and other food that refer to human body parts -- especially words in languages other than English. The only foreign one I know is "coco" -- a Portuguese word that means goblin face, which is what they see when they look at the little dents on a coconut. Does anyone know any others?
Capellini (angel hair pasta in US) is Italian for "little hair" and there is another kind of pasta called orechetti (I think the spelling is all off there) which means "little ears". There are probably other body part pastas that I can't recall now. Also, I think "ladyfingers" is a direct translation from the French, but I can't remember the French for it. I'll keep thinking (and getting hungrier and hungrier)...
and search the threads-- misc. i think-- for Nun's fart-- the name of a french canadian pastry! the thread -- (Sept? Nov? was 50% food-- and i am sure there are some there.
there are also "elephant ears" also know as "palm leaves" a puff pastry cookie, and "bear's claws"-- also known as "Snails" --not human parts...and vienia fingers..
Nun's fart is also the name of a Sardinian pastry (well, the translation of it). It is very sweet. I don't think it's the same as the French-Canadian one.
The word "avocado" comes from the Nahuatl word "ahuacatl", which means 'testicle' . The Nahuatl word for juice is "molli" (hence mole). Guacamole, then, is translated literally as "testicle juice" (hey, *i* didn't name the stuff)
Artichoke hearts. Which, like hearts of palm, I'm thinking are so named from the sense of "heart" meaning "center" and nothing to do with the organ which pumps blood.
ears of corn Be careful about "corn" -- if the expression with ears originated in England, where "corn" means grain in general, esp. wheat. Of course ears doesn't seem to make any more sense with a wheatstalk than with a stalk of maize.
A "hand" of bananas that comes from a "palm" tree. And I'm not going to be the first one to mention nuts either. "Parson's nose" on a chicken. Borrowing from the recent Rhyming slang thread you have "loaf* of bread" Rod * 'cos "loaf"="head" via "loaf of bread" or is that disappearing rapidly up its own jacksie?
re "parson's nose". Also known as "the Pope's nose" which I didn't know until a minute ago. This is the gristly fatty tail protuberance which is considered a delicacy by some. (From google) Apparently originated as a derogatory term to demean Catholics in England during the late 17th century. Rod
OK, mebbe it's from German. I've seen them referred to several times. Once in the movie Amadeus. They are a confection. One could imagine the shape and one would likely be right.
For All Saints' Day (1st Nov.), we also eat "Saint's Bones", tubular sweets of white marzipan with some kind of dark filling in them. A bit grim, but pretty tasty...
Nipple of Venus They are either cakes, sort of like cupcakes but flatter and rounder, in fact the same shape as a breast; or sometimes a mousse. If a cake, iced, if a mousse colored, pink to look like flesh, with a cherry half or maybe raspberry in the center. They can be quite realistic.
My grandmother called this 'the part that goes over the fence last'
The vertebral column is completed in the tail region by a flat plate known as the pygostyle, which forms a support for the rectrices, or steering tailfeathers.
Also in this area in some birds there are the glands that produce oil to condition the feathers.
Coco in Spanish can be used as coconut, head and bogeyman. When I was a kid I used to wrap my sheets around me when in bed for fear of “el coco”. As Marianna said we have teeth and garlic heads. We also have hearts of fruits, usually apples. We eat big ears “orejones” that are dry peaches and make a pumpkin sweet named "cabello de angel" angel’s hair.
The vertebral column is completed in the tail region by a flat plate known as the pygostyle, which forms a support for the rectrices, or steering tailfeathers.
Also in this area in some birds there are the glands that produce oil to condition the feathers.
No luck with "Nipples of Venus" and I would like the recipe. (by PM please) For a dessert with that name I would throw a party for a few select friends! It must be a dessert, musn't it?
These are all such great examples! I love that many are naughty: Pope's nose, testicles, nun's fart, and nipples of Venus. I guess food just brings that out in people. And now that Marianna mentions it, I remember having "bones of the dead" cookies from a local, and very traditional Italian pastry shop in NY's East Village. They were really crunchy! I'm going to hunt up a comprehensive list of Italian pasta -- I have a feeling that it's a motherlode....
I forgot our "huesos de santo" bones of saint. Those easter sweets are thin cylinders of bone colored marzipan stuffed with a red cream of sweet potatoes that reminds the bone marrow.
May 1st indeed is Lei Day in Hawai'i !! What a beautiful display of imaginative lei on display at Kapiolani Park , should you happen to be there on that day. One year I had a jade plant lei. Gorjus against a pale bue mu'umu'u ... like the sea surrounding us. (Long, Deep, Sigh of Longing -e) You may order Dendrobium lei delivered by air from Mauna Loa catalogue, As for me, I have two lovely lei of silk so real looking people want to touch and always ask "Is that real?"! One orchid, one ginger. Expensive available in Hawai'i only, leastaways I haven't seen them anywhere else. By the way no plural in Hawaiian (tenuous word-related try) one lei is a lei, ten lei are still lei.
The origin of yodeling is interesting. One evening while trudging his weary way between Swiss villages, a travelling ski wax salesman got caught in a blizzard. He sought shelter at a farmhouse, and the Farmer and wife allowed him to stay, but as the only sleeping accomodation was alongside the two delightful daughters, the farmer made him promise not to touch them. The next morning the farmer checks on his daughters, and finds them lying in disarray with smiles on their faces. He rushes outside and sees the salesman just about to disappear over the hill, and yells after him "You broke your promise! You slept with my daughters!" And the salesman's voice sings back across the valley "And your old lady too!" Rod
The origin of yodeling is interesting. One evening while trudging his weary way between Swiss villages, a travelling ski wax salesman got caught in a blizzard.
That accounts only for Swiss yodeling. Here in the Yew Ess Aye, yodeling got its start from a lack of wax salesmen. Just watch on old Western movie, the ones with the singing cowboys, and you'll notice that they yodeled because they hadn't waxed the splintery seat planks on the wagons.
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. The Nahuatl word for juice is "molli" (hence mole). Guacamole, then, is translated literally as "testicle juice" (hey, *i* didn't name the stuff)
