Sunday, November 05, 2006

A love of words, a love of cooking

I love words. I love reading them; sometimes I love writing them. I enjoy knowing about them. Of all the sciences, I probably love etymology the best. The American Heritage Dictionary (itself an etymological resource) defines etymology as "the origin and historical development of a linguistic form (a word or phrase) as shown by determining its basic elements, earliest known use, and changes in form and meaning, tracing its transmission from one language to another, identifying its cognates in other languages, and reconstructing its ancestral form where possible." Technically, it's not really a science, just a study.

Still.

I also love cooking. It's chemistry you can eat. Or maybe it's a transcendent art form that raises the raw stock of sustenance from something chewable to something enjoyable.

Food writing is both pleasures knit together. But when you get an article about the etymology of a well loved dish, that is heaven.

I give you the History of Nachos.

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