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Re: We speak the same language??

On Wed 19 Aug, Stacey VanDenburgh wrote:
> Allan's response to Stan's Strip reminds me of something. He mentions a
> "fortnight", which those of us Americans who read English literature
> know as "two weeks".  A few years ago, my husband and I were in England
> during the wonderful month of June and we noticed that some vegetables
> had different names: what is commonly referred to as zucchini here in
> the US are called courgettes and eggplants were aubergines. Does anyone 
> know of any other differences? I mean, both countries do speak the same
> language, right? Actually, I think there are regional differences in the
> USA too, are they scallions or green onions?
> 
> --Stacey
> 
> Farmington, NY
> Zone 5
>
Stacey, you have raised the ghosts of recent correspondence (see
bottling v canning in the archives) just when I thought it was all
finished with. I certainly could collect a lot of differences between
usage of certain words in Britain and the States,even in veggies alone
but I don't suppose it would do any good. For instance our broad beans
you call fava beans, a term so unrecognised over here that I had to look
it up, I had never heard of it before. As to courgettes, that came from
the French use of immature marrows in cooking (courge=little pumpkin),
the word Zucchini is Italian and is applied to one variety only, perhaps
the most popular one with gardeners. But with all the cucurbits the
dividing lines are very blurred. Even in UK until we moved across the
country we had never heard runner beans described as kidney beans, a
term which is elsewhere reserved exclusively for french beans, or what
you call green beans! We grow a bean called Romano, from Thompson &
Morgan which has the flavour of a runner bean , indeed that was how it
was described at first, then with no explanation the next year it came
labelled as a french bean which it seems to be by habit. As to that
eggplant, that name is best reserved for one type of aubergine which has
all the appearance of a white egg and needs more heat than I can give it
rather than the large purple fruits one sees in our shops and is happy
at lower temperatures.

My conclusion about the whole affair is when using these names be very
careful about understanding what the other person really means. I doubt
if it is possible to do a glossary which is 100% reliable. If the
botanic names apply, use these because at least these are standardised
at international level.
-- 
Allan Day  Hereford HR2 7AU allan@crwys.demon.co.uk
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