On the origins of food names

Studying the menu in a swish Florida restaurant, your correspondent asked his waiter, Anthony (a resting actor), where 'Marinara sauce' got its name. Anthony hesitated for just a moment, clearly wondering how anyone could be so stupid. 'Well', he explained, 'its a sauce. With marinara in'. But could there be any more to it than that

American etymologist Martha Barnette wrote a book on the origins of food names (Ladyfingers & Nun's Tummies: A Lighthearted Look at How Foods Got Their Names, Random House USA, 1997; currently out of print) which offers an alternative suggestion to the 'sauce with marinara in' theory.

'Marinara' describes food cooked 'sailor-style.' In this case, a tomato-based pasta sauce kept for a long time and could be eaten without being re-heated, (fire being a tricky proposition onboard wooden boats), and was therefore prepared for long sea voyages. In other words, readers who share your correspondent's dislike of fish can now eat Marinara with impunity.

Meanwhile,some foods named after people:...

Eggs Benedict
Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City claims to be the first restaurant in the USA, and also home to the hamburger (possible) and Delmonico steak (frankly probable). And Eggs Benedict: regular diners Mr and Mrs LeGrand Benedict wanted a change from the regular menu; a chef came up with eggs, ham, a muffin and some Hollandaise sauce.

Beef Stroganoff (Stroganov)
Named in honour of Count Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov, the man who employed the (anonymous) chef who first combined beef, mushrooms and sour cream. The dish won a cooking competition held in St Petersburg, capital of imperial Russia not long before the Revolution. Unlike St Petersburg, the dish retained its pre-Revolutionary name.

Sandwich
The humble sandwich has similarly noble origins, but at least this aristocrat, John Montagu the 4th Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), came up himself with the food that took his name. It is said that the Earl, anxious not to interrupt his gambling, ordered staff to serve him cold roast beef between slices of bread.

Caesar Salad
This time, the chef gets the credit. Caesar Cardini mixed up all his leftovers one day and came up with a salad that is still eaten the world over. The taste helped, of course, but so too did the fact that his first customers were Hollywood stars on a break in his home town of Tijuana, Mexico. They took the recipe back to California and helped spread its popularity.

Peach Melba/Melba Toast
Another celebrity connection. Dame Nellie Melba possessed one of the great soporano voices of all time and was the grande dame of her day, but is now best remembered for the foods named in her honour. Both were the creation of the great French chef Auguste Escoffier of the Ritz Hotel in London, where Melba stayed while performing in the capital. Lucky she changed her name, or we might all be tucking in to Peach Mitchell.

What the name is trying to tell you...

• vermicelli comes from the Italian for 'little worms'
• avocadocomes from 'abucatl,' the Aztec word for 'testicle'...
• ... while the Rocky Mountain Oyster is none other than that old favourite, deep-fried bull testicles (Mountain Oysters are ram testicles in New Zealand)
• derived from the ancient Greek 'lasanon' (chamber pot) is the dish we know and love as lasagna. Lovely.
• from the old German, pumpernickelcan be translated loosely as devil's fart (other theories are less scatalogical)
• a complicated etymology involving Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit cannot hide the fact that aubergine comes from a word meaning 'anti-fart vegetable'.
• on the other hand spotted dick isn't as bad as it sounds: 'dick' was the common word for a 'plain pudding' until 1891.

And to wash it all down
Back to a name derived from an individual. Booze dates back to the hard-fought US Presidential campaign of 1840, when Philadelphian distiller E.C. Booz distributed whiskey in log cabin-shaped bottles. The idea didn't really catch on but his candidate William Henry Harrison won a landslide victory - and Booz's name passed into the language.