趣談“茄子”和“紐紋面包”

“茄子”名字起源

What strange connotations the eggplant has inspired! A Lebanese eggplant recipe is called baba ganousb, which means "spoiled old daddy." Eggplant is also one of the ingredients in a Turkish recipe called imam bayaldi. Translated, this means "the priest has fainted."

茄子這個詞會令我們產生多么奇怪的聯想!黎巴嫩有一道用茄子做的菜名叫baba ganousb，意思是“變質的老爸”。土耳其也有一道用茄子做的菜名叫 imam bayaldi，意思是“暈倒的牧師”。

Eggplants originated in India and were introduced to Spain in the twelfth century by the Arabs. Before the fifteenth century, the vegetable was used only for decoration, as people believed it was poisonous. In Italy, where eggplant was suspected of causing insanity, it was called mala insana, "mad apple". Later, when people had begun eating the vegetable, Europeans called it the "apple of love", for it was believed to arouse passion.

茄子原產于印度，十二世紀由阿拉伯人引入西班牙。15世紀之前，由于人們認為茄子有毒，所以它們僅僅被用來作裝飾品。在意大利，人們曾懷疑茄子會讓人精神錯亂，于是把它叫做mala insana，也就是“瘋狂的蘋果”。之后，人們開始食用茄子的時候，歐洲人就把它們稱作“蘋果之愛”，因為人們覺得茄子可以引發(fā)激情。

From apples we move to eggs. Why do we now call this large purple vegetable an eggplant?

茄子的稱呼由蘋果到雞蛋，為何我們現在稱這種大個的紫色蔬菜為eggplant呢?

As with most vegetables, there are different types of eggplant. The edible part of one variety is small and white. It was named eggplant since it looked as if it were growing eggs. Once the name was established in the middle 1700s, it was also applied to the purple vatiety.

和大多數蔬菜一樣，茄子也分不同的種類。其中有種可食用的品種就長得小小白白的。因為看起來好像成長的雞蛋，所以就被稱為eggplant了。茄子的名字一旦在18世紀中葉確定，那么紫色的品種也就同樣叫做eggplant了。

“扭紋面包”名字起源

Wouldn't you think that history would have recorded the name of the person who came up with something as terrific as the pretzel? But that's not what happened. All we know is that in 610 A.D. a monk in northern Italy first twisted the pretzel into its unusual shape. When children learned their prayers, he rewarded them with the bread shaped to represent the folded arms of children in prayer.

難道你不認為歷史應該記錄下發(fā)明這么棒的扭紋面包的人的名字嗎?然而歷史沒有這樣的記載。我們所知的只是在公元610年，意大利北部有個修道士第一次把一種面包扭曲成這種與眾不同的形狀。當孩子們學完祈禱文，修道士就獎勵給他們這種好像禱告中交疊的雙臂形狀的面包。

The word pretzel comes either from the Latin pretiole, which means "little gift", or from the Italian bracciatelli, which means "small arms".

Pretzel這個詞源自于拉丁語pretiloe，意思是“小禮物”，或者源自于意大利語bracciatelli，意思是“小胳膊”。