Is There Anything Celtic on the English Menu?

As you know from the introduction the Celts were a native population of the British Isles before Anglo-Saxons settled there. The Celts preserved their language in some parts of Britain, but they did not add many words to the English vocabulary. Those, that are in use now, are mostly place-names: names of regions, towns, rivers. The Celts had a number of similar words to name rivers, like: Exe, Esk, Usk. All of them come from a word meaning water (uisge). Later this word was used to name a strong alcoholic drink made from barley or rye. It was first called “water of life”. The word changed its from and pronunciation, and today at restaurants in the West one can see on the menu among other spirits whisky, a Celtic word formerly meaning water.

Culinary Refinements Learned from the Romans

Some of the English words relating to meals are of Latin origin, they were borrowed from the Romans in ancient time. The Romans in the period of their flourishing and expansion came into contact with the Germanic tribes, or the Teutons, who later moved to Britain and formed there English nation. The Romans were a race with higher civilization that the Teutons whom they considered barbarians. They taught the Teutons many useful things and gave them very important words that the forefathers of the English brought with them to Britain and that remained in the English language up to now. Kitchen and table are Latin words borrowed in those far-off days, that show a revolution in culinary arrangements; dish, kettle and cup also became know to the Teutons at that time.

The early words of Latin origin give us a dim picture of Roman traders travelling with their mules and asses along the paved roads of the German provinces, their chests and boxes and wine-sacks full of goods that they profitably bargained with the primitive ancestors of the nowadays English. Wine was one of the first items of trade between the Romans and the Teutons. That’s how this word came into use.

The Teutons knew only the fruit – apple, they did not grow fruit trees or cultivated gardens, but they seem to have been eager to learn, for the borrowed pear, plum, cherry.

The Teutons were an agricultural people, under the influence of the Romans they began to grow beet, onion.

Milk was one of the main kinds of food with the Teutons, but the Romans taught them methods of making cheese and butter from milk.

Among other culinary refinements that came to the Teutons from the Romans are spices: pepper, mint.

Judging by the Latin borrowings of that period the ancestors of English were very much impressed by Roman food, weren’t they?

It Was Not Bread in Old English

In Old English there was a different word with which the Englishmen called bread, it was hlaf. But then as a result of the Vikings invasion and Scandinavian influence on the English language a new word of the same meaning entered the English vocabulary from Scandinavian: cake. Since the English had already their own word (hlaf), they started to use the word cake for a special type of bread. First it referred to a mall loaf of bread of flat and round shape. From the 15^th century it began to mean sweet food, as it does now.

The Scandinavians, living in Britain, called their bread by the word brauth. The English had a similar word – bread meaning a lump, a piece of bread. Under the influence of the Scandinavian language the word bread widened its meaning and began to mean bread in general, while one the word loaf (from Old English hlaf) narrowed its meaning, now it is a large lump of bread which we slice before eating.

Eggs Were of Different Form in Old English

The great Englishman Caxton, who introduced printing in Britain in1476, wrote in a preface to one of the books about a funny episode with eggs. The thing is that in Old English the word egg had a different form which was spelled as ey in Middle English; its plural form was eyren. And again the Scandinavians brought with them to Britain their word egg. It first spread in the northern English dialects, the southerners did not know it and used their native word.

Caxton tells the readers that once English merchants from the northern regions were sailing down the Thanes, bound for the Netherlands. There was no wind and they landed at a small southern village. The merchants decided to buy some food. They came to a house and one of them asked a woman if she could sell them eggs. The woman answered that she didn’t understand him because she didn’t know French. The merchant became very angry and said he didn’t speak French either. Then another merchant helped. He said they wanted eyren, the woman understood him and brought them eggs.

For rather a long period of time two words existed in Britain: a native English word eyren was used in the South, and the Scandinavian borrowing eggs in the North. The Scandinavian word has won after all, as you can see.

The French Adorned the English Table. Thanks to William the Conqueror!

Many food names in English are French borrowings. After the Norman Conquest under William the Conqueror (1066) French words began to enter the English language increasing in number for more than tree centuries. Among them were different names of dishes. The Norman barons brought to the English their skill.

Learners of the English language notice that there is one name for a live beast grazing in the field and another for the same beast when it is killed and cooked. The matter is that the English peasants preserved Anglo-Saxon names for the animals thy used to bring to Norman castles to sell. But the dishes made of the meat got French names. That is why now we have native English names of animals: ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, and French names of meals from whose meat they are cooked: beef, veal, mutton, pork.(By the way, “lamb” is an exception, it is a native Anglo-Saxon word.) A historian writes that an English peasant who had spent a hard day tending his oxen, calves, sheep and swine probably saw little enough of the beef, veal, mutton and pork, which were gobbled at night by his Norman masters.

The French enriched English vocabulary with such food words as bacon, sausage, gravy; then: toast, biscuit, cream, sugar. They taught the English to have for desert such fruits as: fig, grape, orange, lemon, pomegranate, peach and the names of these fruits became known to the English due to the French. The English learned from them how to make pastry, tart, jelly, treacle. From the French the English came to know about mustard and vinegard. The English borrowed from the French verbs to describe various culinary processes: to boil, to roast, to stew, to fry.

One famous English linguist exclaimed: “ It is melancholy to think what the English dinner would have been like, had there been no Norman Conquest!”

Words from Distant Exotic Countries

In Modern period because of world trade and Britain’s large part in it, the English have borrowed words from distant and exotic countries: potato from South America, maize from the West Indies, tomato, cocoa, chocolate from Mexico, coffee from Turkey, tea from China; banana from the African country of Congo. The words came to English by different ways, but these are the countries of their origin.

#9 McDonald’s

Pre-reading task

Discuss the following questions:

• What does fast food mean?

• Why is fast food so popular?

Maurice (“Mac”) and Richard McDonald have a dream. The want to be movie star. They go to California from the East Coast. But they cannot find jobs in the movies. They are very poor. They are very disappointed. They must do something to make money. They decided to open a restaurant in San Bernardino. They want to try something new – a fast-food restaurant. They borrow money and open a restaurant. They call the restaurant McDonald’s. Hamburgers, milk shakes, and french fries are on the menu? No one things it will work. But people love it. The food is simple, fast, and good. Soon, people wait in lien outside the restaurant.

A salesman named Ray Ray Kroc from Chicago cannot understand why the restaurant needs so many milk-shake machines. So he goes to California to see this restaurant. He is amazed. People wait outside the restaurant to get in. He tries the food. It is great. And the restaurant is so clean.

Kroc asks the brothers to open other restaurants like this. The brothers say the make enough money. Kroc tells the brothers they can make more money. He can open other McDonald’s like this one. He will give them some money for these restaurants. The brothers agree.

It is 1995. Kroc opens two other McDonald’s. But people want more. Soon there are hundreds of McDonald’s. The brothers have enough money. They sell McDonald’s to Ray Kroc. He pays $2.5 million.

Kroc becomes very rich. And the brothers? They are happy with their quiet life.

Comprehension check

Answer the following questions:

• Do you have a dream? What do you think to do?

• What is your favorite fast food?

• How many fast-food restaurants can you name?

#10 Potato Chips

Potato chips are America’s favorite snack. Where do potato chips come from? It is 1853. A native American named George Crum makes the first potato chips. Crum is a chef in an expensive restaurant in Saratoga Springs, New York. One day, a customer does not like the french fries. He says they are too thick. So Crum makes more, this time thinner. The customer still does not like them. Crum gets mad. He decides to make the customer angry. So he cuts the potatoes very, very thin. The customer loves them.

Other people want Crum’s potato chips. Now, there is a new food on the menu – Saratoga chips. Soon Crum opens his own restaurant and he makes his special chips.

It takes a long time to make potato chips. People peel the potatoes by hand. Then, in 1920, the automatic potato peeler changes everything. Now it is faster and easier to make potato chips. Now potato chips are not a specialty. They are popular snack food, but only in the North.

A salesman named Herman Lay wants to sell potato chips in the South. He sells potato chips in bags. His business grows. Today, Americans eat a lot of potato chips. Americans spend $10.5 million on potato chips every day!

Comprehension check

Answer the following questions:

• Do you eat potatoes? What is your favorite way to eat them?

• What is your favorite snack food?

• What things make cooking easier today?

#11 The Hot Dog

In its home country of Germany, the hot dog was called the frankfurter. It was named after Frankfurt, a German city.

Frankfurters were first sold in the United States in the 1860s. Americans called frankfurters “dachshund sausages”. A dachshund is a dog from Germany with a very long body and short legs. “Dachshund sausages” seemed like a good name for the frankfurter.

Dachshund sausages first became popular in New York, especially at baseball games. At games they were sold by men who kept them warm in hot-water tanks. As the men walked up and down the rows of people, they yelled, “Get your dachshund sausages!” Get your hot dachshund sausages!” People got the sausages on buns, a special bread.

One day in 1906 a newspaper cartoonist named Tad Dorgan went to a baseball game. When he saw the man with the dachshund sausages, he got an idea for a cartoon. The next day at the newspaper office he drew a bun with the dachshund inside – not a dachshund sausage, but a dachshund. Dorgan didn’t know to spell dachshund. Under the cartoon, he wrote “Get your hot dogs!”

The cartoon was a sensation, and so was the new name. If you go to a baseball game today, you can still see sellers walking around with hot-water tanks. As they walk up and down the rows they yell, “Get your hot dogs here! Get your hot dogs!”