Dining, Drinking, and a Detour

Last week while researching the blog words my dictionary used a word in definition that I had never seen before: crapulous. It turns out to be a good word that had I known about it I would have used in my blog post (the one that has been viewed by far more than any other of this blog’s posts) entitled “Let’s Drink to That”, because crapulous is a good word for excessive eating and drinking.

Crapulous comes from the Latin word crapula, and the Romans, who used it exclusively in regards to over-drinking, got it from the Greeks, who spelled it kraipale. (Actually, they spelled it kraipale, but it’s hard enough to understand my English let alone my Greek.) For the Greeks it referred to the headache or nausea that occurred from a night of debauching. That is the sense it has developed in English, where it has been used since the 1530s to mean not only the act of overeating or drinking too much, but the resultant suffering that occurs from such overindulging. So someone who is replete or who has been a gourmand might feel crapulous.

Other words that hearken back to that previous post are gastronomy and zabaglione. But first a detour caused by my use of the word hearken:

Can you hearken forward? No, but you can pay heed, or hearken, to what you read or hear now. Hearken is a good word that dates back to the late 12^th century, whence it came from a Middle English word herchen. According to etymonline.com “harken is the usual spelling in U.S.” but I must admit I haven’t noticed that spelling; perhaps I read too much written in England. 

Of course, now a further detour is necessitated by my use of the word whence, which is a good word that takes the question “From what place?” or “From what source?” and includes it all in one word. It came to English in the late 13^th century also from the Middle English, from whennes. Etymonline.com includes the explanation “…with adverbial genitive –s, from Old English hwanone, related to hwænne” whence we get our word "when." All of which reminds me of an old English teacher (the teacher was old, not the language being studied, or I would have had to write it Old English teacher) who insisted that words beginning with wh- be pronounce with an initial h- sound followed by the w-. Now I know where she got that idea. From her childhood in the middle ages.  Enough of a detour.

Gastronomy is a word I have heard Bert Wolf, the food writer/television travel guide, use on more than one occasion. It is defined as the art or study of good eating. A gourmet would be interested in gastronomy. Gastronomy came to English in 1814 from the French word gastronomie (no surprise there). But the etymology of the word is interesting. It is a coined word, created in 1800 by Joseph de Berchoux as the title for a poem he wrote on good living. Apparently he got the idea from a poem that was quoted in writings by Athenæus. Speaking of Athenæus, in etymonline.com the listing below the etymology on gastronomy is the related word deipnosophist.

Deipnosophist is a new word to me, and etymonline gives it the short definition of “gourmand.” But my dictionary expands the definition to include anyone who is adept at conversation around the dinner table. A raconteur at dinner becomes a deipnosophist. Deipnosophist came to English in the 1650s from the Greek word deipnosophistes (deipnoswfistes, I think) that meant “one learned in the mysteries of the kitchen.” Again, the word originally game from Athenæus, from his third century work on gastronomy the title of which is Deipnosophistai.

Of course, now I’ve got to tell you about raconteur before I get to zabaglione.

A raconteur is someone skilled at telling stories or anecdotes in an interesting way. I am not aware of it ever being used to describe me. It appeared in English in 1828, from the French word raconteur which came from the French word for “recounting”, raconter. Not every deipnosophist is a raconteur, and not every raconteur is a deipnosophist, but it’s good to know both good words.

Now, finally, zabaglione. It is fitting that zabaglione comes at the end of the post, since it is an Italian dessert made from egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala wine. The ingredients form a foamy custard that can be served hot or chilled. Zabaglione arrived in English at the end of the 19th century, from the Italian as a variant of zabaione, which might have come into Italian from the Late Latin word sabai, which was "an Illyrian drink." Chaudeau is a type of zabaglione, but that will have to wait for another post.