Category: L
-
Loaf
The most amazing fact about the history of the word loaf is not where it came from, but where it went: it became part of two Old English compounds that eventually evolved into the words lord and lady. The word loaf was first recorded in the tenth century, when it was spelt and pronounced hlaf.…
-
Litre
All the linear measurements in the metric system are ultimately based upon the distance from the equator to the North Pole: one ten-millionth of that distance is a metre, one ten-thousandth is a kilometre. These linear measurements even became the basis of liquid measurements: a litre is the volume represented by a cube whose edges…
-
Liquor
From the Latin verb liquere, meaning to be fluid, two other Latin words arose: liquor, a noun, and liquidus, an adjective. In the early thirteenth century, English borrowed the Latin noun, liquor, initially using the word to refer to any liquid substance, be it vinegar, honey, blood, or wine. By the fourteenth century, however, the…
-
Linguine
Linguine in Italian means little tongues, which the strands of the thin, flat pasta resemble. Accordingly, linguine is related to the words linguist, language, and cunnilingus whose connections with the human tongue are even more apparent. The word linguine entered English in 1948. This particular type of pasta bears a semblance to a slender and…
-
Limpopo
The Limpopo is a river in Africa that flows east to the Indian Ocean. Rudyard Kipling’s description of it in The Jungle Book as “the great, grey, green, greasy Limpopo” was also thought, by some of his friends, to be an accurate description of the avocado, a fruit that Kipling despised. Accordingly, limpopo became a…
-
Lima bean
Lima beans take their name from the city in Peru where, hundreds of years ago, they were first cultivated. In turn, the city of Lima acquired its name when Spanish explorers mispronounced the name Rimak, which is what the Quechua, the native people of the region, originally called their city. Further back in history, Rimak…
-
Liebesknochen
Centuries ago, a woman who wanted to have a child might munch on a liebesknochen, a cream-filled, German pastry whose name literally means bone of love (the German liebe is related to the English love and to the Latin libido; the German knochen, meaning bone, is related to the English knuckle). Unlike edible underwear, a…
-
Licorice
Although not often used in gastronomy, the juice of the licorice root has been widely used to make candies and throat lozenges since at least the Middle Ages. The name of this plant looks as if it might be related to the word liquor, a resemblance even more striking in Britain where licorice is usually…
-
Liberty cabbage
During the First World War, sentiment against all things German intensified tosuch an extent that a movement arose to change the name of sauerkraut tosomething more “American.” On April 24, 1918, a delegation of vegetabledealers petitioned the Federal Food Administration to rename the condimentliberty cabbage. The delegation pointed out that consumption of sauerkraut inthe U.S.…
-
Lettuce
When lettuce is cut it exudes a milky juice, which is why the ancient Romans called the plant lactuca, a name derived from the Latin lac, meaning milk. The word was introduced to English in the late thirteenth century, but the English did not commonly cultivate it in their gardens until the fifteenth century. Words…