foodandhistory

[foodandhistory]

Pasta // Pasta is beloved, but who did it first? It turns out that pasta (”paste”) may have many points of origins. Sure, China invented noodles, but people around the Mediterranean have been using some combination of flour and egg to soak up their sauces and food for a long time.

While it’s highly unlikely that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy, it is believed that pasta as we know it made its way westward from Asia at an earlier time, perhaps by nomadic Arab traders. According to Culinary Lore, “There are written reports of ‘a food made from flour in the form of strings,’ in Sicily, described by an Arab trader named Idrisi in 1154, well before Marco Polo’s travels. There were even noodles called rishta in the Middle East, a food of Persian origin. Also, at the Spaghetti Museum in Pontedassio, Imperia, there are several documents from 1240, 1279, and 1284 which refer to pasta, maccheroni, and vermicelli as known foods, well before Marco Polo’s return in 1292.”

Long, long before pasta was a twinkle in the eye of Italy, some time before 200 BCE, the northern Chinese were already developing the art of noodle making. References to noodles and dumplings (precursors for ravioli perhaps?) appear throughout historical Chinese texts, such as an ode from 300 CE by Shu Xi (McGee notes that “poets frequently likened their appearance and texture to the qualities of silk”) and in a 544 CE document that outlines a number of flour-products, including wheat noodles…

In the 9th century, a Syrian text mentions itriya, dough that is shaped into strings and dried. Could this be a precursor to Sophia Loren’s spaghetti? Later, in 11th century Paris, the term vermicelli (with verm from Latin for worm) was used to describe very thin pastas. In the 13th century, macaroni was first used to describe “various shapes, from flat to lumpy.”

The International Origins of Pasta - Cucina Toscana

[foodandhistory]

Saffron // One of the world’s most expensive spices, the origins remain difficult to pin down but it’s mostly grown in Iran right now.

In the 1500s and 1600s, the center of the saffron universe briefly shifted from the sun-baked Mediterranean to rainy England. One particular region of England became so internationally famous for its saffron—in fact, each autumn, the entire area was carpeted in purple petals—that the local market town of Chepying Walden changed its name to Saffron Walden. But by the 1800s, England’s saffron fields had vanished entirely. 

The Spice That Hooked Medieval Nuns - The Atlantic

[foodandhistory]

Pad Thai // Pad Thai’s political origins as a necessary dish for Thailand’s burgeoning nationalism in the 1940s is fascinating. As one of the most popular Thai’s cultural exports, the dish is salty, sweet and sour.. a great balance of flavors and textures. 

Pibulsongkram wanted to create a new Thai diet while making more rice products available for export. According to his son’s suppositions in the 2009 Gastronomica article “Finding Pad Thai,” the codified modern variant of Pad Thai may have originated in Pibulsongkram’s household, perhaps the devising of the family’s cook. Its recipe was disseminated throughout the country, and push carts were sent into the streets to make this newfangled on-the-go meal available to the masses. To eat Pad Thai would be a patriotic act. Thus was born the Volksnoodle for an emerging Thai nation-state...

The name Pad Thai, however, negates the considerable non-Thainess of the dish. Noodles were the domain of Chinese immigrants in Thailand, and pan-fried rice noodles like Pad Thai likely arrived with them hundreds of years ago when Ayutthaya had been the kingdom’s capital. The thin rice noodles used in making Pad Thai is also similar to Vietnamese noodles, like the ones used in making pho. It’s no coincidence that the Saen Chan noodle used in many Pad Thai recipes took its name from Chanthaburi, an eastern province close to Vietnam and Cambodia. 

Pad Thai is the Most Misunderstood Noodle - The Morning News

[foodandhistory]

Banh Mi (Asian) // Simon Stanley nerds out on the rich and incredible history of Vietnamese sandwiches - part French, and so much inventiveness!

[Banh Mi’s] journey to international fame began 250 yards down the street, on the banks of the Saigon River in 1859, when the first French gunships and troops arrived to storm the city and begin the 30-year conquest of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, eventually forming the federation of Indochina in 1887. From here it would take another 70 years, two world wars, a long and bloody war with the French, the civil war that followed, and a young family fleeing the communist takeover in Hanoi to create the sandwich we know today.

Not only did France use its wealth and technology to reaffirm and justify the colonial hierarchy and its assumed superiority over the Vietnamese, food formed another important line between ‘us’ and ‘them’. “Bread and meat make us strong, rice and fish keep them weak,” was a common adage at the time, backed by centuries of absurd pseudo-science which suggested that the rice-centric diets of Southeast Asia made its people somehow predisposed to imperial subjugation. And for a time the colonists stuck to it, rigidly, maintaining a European diet while disapproving of any French who ate Vietnamese food, and any Vietnamese who ate French food...

A few bridges had to be crossed before Hoà Mã’s owners could dish up the first truly Vietnamese sandwich. At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the two largest import companies in Indochina, being German-owned, were seized by the French colonial authorities—along with their warehouses piled high with European perishables. As thousands of French officials and soldiers stationed in Indochina set off to France to assist with the war effort, the Vietnamese market was suddenly flooded with a surplus of European products, all at discounted prices. The working classes were suddenly able to afford French beer, cheeses, meats, and bread, along with the now ubiquitous Southeast Asian staples of Maggi Sauce (a Swiss invention used as a savory flavor enhancer) and tinned condensed milk (destined to be a staple in Vietnam’s famously ferocious coffee).For the 100,000 Vietnamese men sent to Europe to fight alongside the French, they too would get their first tastes of European food, much to the concern of some. Colonial authorities feared that having experienced ‘the good life’ in Europe, the repatriated Vietnamese would no longer respect the imperial machine. To some extent, they were right, and many returned to Vietnam with a newly acquired disdain for their French masters and a thirst for nationalism.The First World War also ended the culinary xenophobia established by the first-generation colonists. As the global conflict disrupted shipping routes, a Vietnamese diet became unavoidable. Bread, however, was a hard habit to break...

The entire thing is worth reading as Simon also addresses a lot of the myths regarding rice flour and how the components of the sandwich came together.

The Sandwich that Ate the World by Simon Tate, Roads and Kingdoms

[foodandhistory]

Fish Sauce (Asian) // Naomi Duguid goes deep into the origins of fish sauce in Asia, exquisitely tying invention to environment. Fascinating!

Once the discussion moves to Southeast Asia, well…every country claims fish sauce as its own and most take this claim very seriously. There are the Chinese, who say that soy sauce and dao jiao (fermented soy beans) are the vegetable/soy version of fish paste and fish sauce, which were a Chinese invention. The argument is that the idea traveled south from China, either with migrants overland or with traders, as rice-noodle-making seems to have. Then the Vietnamese, whose nuoc mam is now famous, of course take ownership, and the Cambodians (their word is tuk trey), and the Thais, whose nam pla is the fish sauce most widely available in North America, in a wide range of brands. And let’s not forget the Burmese, the Filipinos, the Japanese.

But I think in Southeast Asia it must have started with the Khmer. After all, their great kingdom centered at Angkor controlled not just present-day Cambodia but also what is now southern Vietnam. They needed a method of preserving fish, because every year the great lake, Tonle Sap, yielded a staggering catch.

It works like this: the lake swells as monsoon rains raise the level of the Mekong so much that it flows back up and fills the lake. The floodwaters bring nutrients in the form of eroded soil from upstream (all the way from Tibet, Sichuan, and Yunnan), and that feeds the fish in the lake. By the time the water level drops, as the monsoon ends and the Mekong water levels go down, the lake drains south. With a lot less water and a lot more fish, for centuries, every October-November has been fish harvest time around the Tonle Sap. How to preserve the catch?

You can dry it, but it’s much safer and more practical to pack it with salt and preserve it. The cruder country version of fish sauce, which is how it must have begun, is called prahok in Khmer. It a combination of salty water and softened fermented pieces of fish, very pungent. Fish sauce is a much refined descendent of prahok.

Yes, of course, the idea could have come in from elsewhere, but it seems to me there’s a good argument for the Khmer, whose kingdom depended on the riches of the Tonle Sap, being the originators of fish sauce in the region. Another supporting argument is that in Southeast Asia there’s what I call the “fish sauce line”. North of it, people didn’t traditionally use or make fish sauce. That includes the Shan (also known as Tai Yai) who live in northern Burma and Thailand, and other Tai peoples who live in Yunnan, including the Tai Lu, also known as Dai. They use fermented soybeans and dried shrimp to give dishes that umami flavor Asian cultures love, but traditionally fish sauce has no place in their pantry.

Going Fishing - Roads & Kingdoms

[foodandhistory]

Chicken Fingers // The origins of chicken fingers came from the need to do something with excess and inferior chicken parts:

Cut up a fresh, bone-in chicken breast and you’ll notice that it naturally separates into two distinct parts: a larger, teardrop-shaped lobe of flesh — the piece of meat that you probably think of when someone says “chicken breast” — and a more narrow piece sometimes referred to as a “tender.” The chicken finger originated in the need to find something to do with that tender, explains food historian Gary Allen in a short history of the convenience food published online five years ago.

Chicken fingers, Allen says, were seldom seen before 1990 or so, but by the end of the 1980s, fear of saturated fats turned many North Americans away from beef and toward chicken. Increased demand meant billions of additional chicken breasts were processed — but what was the industry to do with the tenders? The answer is on children’s plates. We can look at Allen’s mini-history of a mini-food as a metaphor for how cuisine has come to be divided in contemporary North America: The prime cuts go to the adults while the less healthy morsels — dressed up in extra salt, fat and sugar and processed almost beyond recognition — end up on the kids’ menu, both in the family restaurants that traffic in such fare, and at home.

Death to the Chicken Fingers - National Post

[foodandhistory]

Avocado // Like most things, European explorers like to believe they discovered the avocados, but the delicious ingredient in guacamole, shakes originated in the Americas, where people had been using them for a long long time. Also, it’s pretty cool that the original name comes from the fact that it looks like balls:

Technically, it’s a berry. Yet unlike any other berry you can think of, it’s not sweet or inviting to eat while still on the branch. The name avocado comes from the Aztec word ahuacatl, which means “testicle,” so named because avocados typically grow in pairs and hang heavy on the tree. Spanish conquistadors came to call them aguacate, a name that was further bastardized by English speakers (a young George Washington wrote in 1751 of the popularity of “agovago pears” in Barbados); once exported back to Spain, they became known as abogado, a word that meant “advocate” or “lawyer.” The avocado fruit became a staple in Central and South America but didn’t land in California until the 1850s, when an avocado tree was imported from Nicaragua by a private citizen as a botanical curiosity.

Have you eaten your last avocado? - NYMag

[foodandhistory]

Fish Sauce (Roman) // Most people are familiar with fish sauce, the essential pungent flavoring in Southeast Asian cuisine, but its history travels a lot further from Asia than originally thought.  In ancient Roman cities, citizens used it as a salt substitute and as parts of dips and sauces, often combining it with wine, vinegar, oil and honey.

Like Asian fish sauces, the Roman version was made by layering fish and salt until it ferments. There are versions made with whole fish, and some with just the blood and guts. Some food historians argue that "garum" referred to one version, and "liquamen" another, while others maintain different terms were popular in different times and places.

The current convention is to use garum as a common term for all ancient fish sauces. Italian archaeologist Claudio Giardino studies the early roots of garum, the Roman version of fish sauce. He cites mention of garum in Roman literature from the 3rd and 4th century B.C., and remains of factories producing garum even earlier. The fish bones remaining at a garum factory in Pompeii even led to a more precise dating of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

So why did fish sauce disappeared from the West? Well, maybe it never did:

"When the Roman Empire collapsed, they put taxes on the salt. And because of these taxes, it became difficult to produce garum." And the collapse of the Roman Empire created another problem: pirates. "The pirates started destroying the cities and the industries nearby the coast. You could be killed any moment by the pirates, without the protection of the Romans," Giardino says. And so, Italian fish sauce pretty much disappeared.

But it remained in a few little pockets — like in Southwest Italy, where they produce colatura di alici, a modern descendant of the ancient fish sauce. The product was barely known even in Italy just a few years ago, but it is gradually being rediscovered.

Fish Sauce: An Ancient Condiment Rises Again - NPR, Deena Prichep

So next time you make spaghetti sauce, add a dash of fish sauce. You'll be amazed!

[foodandhistory]

Annatto Seeds // "Where are they? Where are they where are they?" That was my mother on a recent trip to New York, where, after combing the cavernous Fei Long supermarket in Sunset Park, was in a frenzy.  She couldn't find the final ingredient for bún bò Huế - the packet of annatto seeds. 

From my amateur standpoint, annatto seeds merely add a red coloring to Vietnamese broths, but for her, they were something else, some subtle flavor that added the vital umami to the dish.

While now common in Vietnamese cuisine, the annatto seed is native to the Americas, and not Asia.

Annatto is used both as a spice and a dyestuff. It may be better known to Mexican and Latin markets as achiote or in the Philippines as atsuwete or achuete.  In the West it used to colour confectionery, butter, smoked fish and cheeses like Cheshire, Leicester, Edam and Muenster. As an effective natural colouring it is also used in cosmetics and textile manufacturing. It provides a bright and exotic appearance for many kinds of dishes. Yeats wrote “Good arnotto is the colour of fire” (Natural History, 1870). The Mayan Indians of Central America used the bright dye as war paint.

The EpiCentre

Annatto has a long culinary and medicinal history. In Suriname, the entire plant was used in traditional medicine to treat fever, nausea and dysentery, and they used the saffron-coloured dye obtained from the seeds as a body paint... In Colombia, healers used it to treat snakebites...

A is for Annatto Seed - Chris Galvin

It's etymology also played a game of historical telephone:

The scientific species name orellana is derived from the name of Francisco de Orellana (1511–1546), a Spanish explorer of the 16.th century who had taken part in various expeditions to the New World, securing colonies for the Spanish crown.

Together with Francisco Pizarro, Orellana had been involved in the destruction of the Inca Empire; in 1540, he participated in another expedition led by Gonzalo Pizarro. Following false rumours about gold and cinnamon trees, about 2000 Spaniards entered the Peruvian and Brazilian jungles, where most of them perished. Orellana aban­doned the party and made his way eastward, where he (more or less by chance) discovered the Amazon River and earned scientific fame quite undeservedly. 

By confusion of the Spanish name with the French town Orleans, the German name Orlean­strauch, literally meaningshrub of Orleans emerged.

Other names of this plant all stem from Indio tongues in Central and South America. Most languages derive their names for this plant from Carib annatto, which is loaned mostly in unaltered shape. The Tupi-Guarani term urucul (in the Amazon region) has also been borrowed by some languages, e. g., French rocou, Portuguese urucú and presumably Manipuriureirom...  The scientific genus name, Bixa, was taken from another Carib plant name usually transcribed as bija or biché.

English lipstick tree refers to the cosmetic use of the plant, and Russian pomadnoe derevo [помадное дерево] ointment tree was probably given in a similar vein. Using the annatto dye for cosmetic products is largely obsolete, but usage of annatto for ritual bodypaint is rather ancient, being reported from pre-Colombian Aztecs.

Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages

[foodandhistory]

Ramen // Ramen is uniquely Japanese in it's packaging, manufacturing, flavors and "recent" explosion of regional and international varieties.  Yet, it's origins from China is also very Japanese, and it's history take up much more than a post -- it can even take over multiple museums.

His talk traced ramen from its origins, as a distinctly Chinese soup that arrived in Japan with Chinese tradesmen in the nineteenth century, through the American occupation after the war, to the proliferation of instant ramen in Japan in the seventies; the national frenzy in the eighties and nineties that gave birth to ramen celebrities, ramen museums, and ramen video games; and, finally, America’s embrace of ramen and Japanese culture today, as exhibited by the cultlike craze surrounding the sixteen-dollar bowls of ramen served by the celebrity chef David Chang.

Did ramen help tip the balance of the Cold War?

“Ramen is one of the most minutely documented foods in Japan,” Solt writes. A number of geopolitical and economic factors—the reindustrialization of Japan’s workforce during the Cold War, the redefining of national identity during twenty years of economic stagnation—all combined to elevate ramen from working-class sustenance to a dish that is internationally recognized, beloved, and iconic. His research involved reading everything from ramen graphic novels to government documents produced during the U.S. occupation. In what Solt describes as an “Aha!” moment, he discovered that when the U.S. occupied Japan it imported wheat as a way to contain Communism. “The more Japan experienced food shortages, the more people would gravitate towards the Communist Party,” he said. By providing the wheat needed to make ramen noodles, America won the Cold War, sort of.

George Solt, Ramen Historian, The New Yorker

[foodandhistory]

Bratwurst // Brat (chopped meat) wurst (mixture) is a beloved fixture in German cuisine, but it's lineage in the sausage family can be traced to Celtic, Franconians and even Roman soldiers. It's modernist form took place in the Middle Ages:

Bratwurst dates to the 1300s in a region that eventually became Eastern Germany. Farmers would make the fat-filled sausages in the morning. They’d eat them by noon, as they spoiled fast. That tradition continues in German cities, as many brats are consumed for breakfast.

Jim Hillibish - Journal Standard 

Technically, a bratwurst has to be made from pork, veal or beef. But more than 40 varieties can be identified in Germany - from the long and thin kumbalcher to the spicy thuringer.  The oldest recipe of the bratwurst was discovered in 2000:

Erzmann unearthed a yellowed, handwritten parchment from 1432 that laid down the law regarding the production of Thuringian Rostbratwurst, perhaps the most popular variety of sausage in a country where wurst is worshiped as sacred grub.

The official document decreed that bratwurst from this corner of Thuringia, today a central German state, be made only from "pure, fresh" pork. Forbidden were beef, internal organs, parasites and anything rancid...

Craig Whitlock - Germans Take Pride in the Wurst

[foodandhistory]

Apricot // The sweet aromatic fruit most likely was first cultivated in China over 4,000 years ago, closely resembling the highly prized peach and plum of classic Chinese literature before traveling West where Europeans first encountered from Armenia, where it is still a point of national and cultural pride .  

1. Xing (杏) Prunus armeniaca [as Ancient Greeks ascribed to their Amernian source] a congener of the peach, was again ascertained of its Chinese origins by de Candolle; its cultivation must be as early as that of the peach.  As with the peach, many legends were associated with the tree, and mythical powers were attributed to the fruit and other parts of the plant. David N. Kneightly - The Origins of Chinese Civilization 

2. Etymology: 1550s, abrecock, from Catalan abercoc, related to Portuguese albricoque, from Arabic al-birquq, through Byzantine Greek berikokkia from Latin (malum) praecoquum "early-ripening (fruit)". Form assimilated to French apricot.   Online Etymology Dictionary

3. The third image is from the Ming Dynasty (1370 - 1450) of a gathering in an apricot garden. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: Elegant Gathering in the Apricot Garden, Ming dynasty, ca. 1437

4. Chuang Tzu, a Chinese philosopher in fourth century B.C.E., had told a story that Confucius taught his students in a forum among the wood of apricot. In the second century, Tung Fung, a medical doctor, lived in Lushan. He asked his cured patients to plant apricots in his backyard instead of paying consultation and medical fees. New World Encyclopedia

5. During the Zhou Dynasty [1046 - 256 BC] Chinese apricots were added to soups and stews to provide both thickening and tartness.  Andrew Coe - Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese food in the United States

 6. Apricots originated on the Russian-Chinese border in about 3000 BC and were imported along with peach seed into Europe through the “Silk Road” that extended camelback trading to the Mideast. The fruit grows as an escaped naturalized plant along modern roadsides in Turkey and Armenia today in abundant numbers. Apricots were known in ancient Greece in 60 BC and later introduced into the Roman Empire. History of the Apricot Tree TyTy Nursery

7. The cheeky subtext is that Armenia and China have been rivals for centuries in staking claim to the apricot’s origin. The most influential third-party source remains Pliny the Elder, the Roman naturalist, who named the apricot Prunus Armeniaca some 2,000 years ago...  In fact, evidence of apricots in Armenia far predates Pliny. According to CWR, the ongoing project to document and preserve Armenia’s native wild crops, the Chinese cite references to apricots in their literature going back 4,000 years. But apricot pits have been excavated near Garni and Yerevan dating back 6,000 years. Robyn and Doug Kalajian - The Apricot, Ararat Magazine

8. Spanish explorers are credited for introducing the apricot to the North American content--and specifically California, where they were planted in the gardens of Spanish missions.  In 1792, in an area south of San Francisco, the first major production of apricots was recorded.  Pete Wolfe - History of the Apricot

[foodandhistory]

Aleppo Pepper  // A common spice in the Middle East that traditionally heightens kebobs, stews and grilled dishes, in crushed form it's also known as Halaby pepper. It ranks about 10,000 on the Scofield scale.

Chile peppers were unknown in the Old World until Columbus brought them to Iberia in the early 1500s.  Soon.. Portuguese, Jewish and Arab traders brought them to Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia... Indian, Thai, Indonesian, Syrian, and Szechuan cuisines have especially embraced the chili pepper.. as the main part of their dishes.

Gary Paul Nabhan, Kraig Kraft, Kurt Michael Friese - Chasing Chiles - Hot Spots along the Pepper Trail

Aleppo pepper takes its name from the ancient city Aleppo at the Northern Syria, 45 kilometers east of the Syrian-Turkish border. For centuries they have been as humble and as much used as other local peppers in the area (Antep, Urfa, Maraş). Until they were discovered by renown cookbook author Paula Wolfert... in 1994. According to Los Angeles magazine, this is how Aleppo pepper surfaced to the attention of American chefs, home cooks and foodies of sorts. 

Is Aleppo Pepper that Hot? Truth About Red Pepper Flakes

Other peppers from nearby regions look the same, but the Aleppo flavor is distinct, just as the flavor of prosciutto di Parma is distinct from other cured pork.

Amanda Hesser - A Smoky Pepper's Seductive Powers

[foodandhistory]

Momo // Familiar to lovers of Japanese gyozas and Chinese dumplings, momos have unique flavors coming from the types of meat fillings and spices that are ubiquitous to Nepal, Tibet and the Himalayan regions of Northern India.

The word "momo" comes from a Chinese loanword "momo" (馍馍) which translates to "steamed bread". When preparing momo, flour is filled, most commonly with ground water buffalo meat. Often, ground lamb or chicken meats are used as alternate to water buffalo meat. Finely chopped onion, minced garlic, fresh minced ginger, cumin powder, salt, coriander/cilantro, etc. are added to meat for flavoring. Sauce made from cooked tomatoes flavored with timur (Szechwan pepper), minced red chilies is often served along with momo.

 Wikipedia - Jiaozi

The origin and etymology of momo in Nepal is uncertain but the dish is thought to be rustic in origin. Since this dish was initially popular among the Newar community of Kathmandu valley, one prevalent belief is that Newari traders brought momo techniques from Lhasa, Tibet. They modified the seasonings of the dish with available ingredients, using water buffalo meat, and gave the dish a Nepali name. Other sources claim Kirtiman Sherchan for being the inventor of momos.

Wikipedia - Momo

It's hard to find sources that confirm whether momos are derived from Chinese dumplings or not. Certainly the eye test see similarities. Wikipedia, as illustrated above, sidesteps the question depending on which article you access.

[foodandhistory]

Churros // Indigenous to Spain or derived from China via Portugal?

History is divided on how exactly churros came to exist. Some say they were the invention of nomadic Spanish shepherds. Living high in the mountains with no access to bakeries, the Spanish shepherds supposedly created churros, which were easy for them to cook in frying pans over fire. Lending credibility to this version of history is the fact that there exists a breed of sheep called the "Navajo-Churro", which are descended from the "Churra" sheep of the Iberian Peninsula; the horns of these sheep look similar to the fried pastry.

Another story says that Portuguese sailors discovered a similar food in Northern China called "You Tiao" and they brought it back with them. The Spanish learned of the new culinary treat from their neighbors, and put their own spin on it by passing the dough through a star-shaped tip which gives the churro its signature ridges.

Whether Spanish shepherds, Portuguese sailors or the Chinese get the credit for inventing the churro, it was the conquistadors who introduced them to Latin America. Since then, the modern day churro has undergone various reincarnations including guava-filled churros in Cuba, dulce de leche-filled churros in Mexico and a cheese-filled version in Uruguay.

Tracy Lopez - Churros: The Hidden History

[foodandhistory]

Barbecue // The process of smoking meat until tender is firmly in the American food imagination, but it's origins can be found (or not) in the etymology of the word itself:

The etymology of the term is vague, but the most plausible theory states that the word "barbecue" is a derivative of the West Indian term "barbacoa," which denotes a method of slow-cooking meat over hot coals.  Bon Appetit magazine blithely informs its readers that the word comes from an extinct tribe in Guyana who enjoyed "cheerfully spitroasting captured enemies."

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the word back to Haiti, and others claim (somewhat implausibly) that "barbecue" actually comes from the French phrase "barbe a queue", meaning "from head to tail." Proponents of this theory point to the whole-hog cooking method espoused by some barbecue chefs. 

Tar Heel magazine posits that the word "barbecue" comes from a nineteenth century advertisement for a combination whiskey bar, beer hall, pool establishment and purveyor of roast pig, known as the BAR-BEER-CUE-PIG.

The most convincing explanation is that the method of roasting meat over powdery coals was picked up from indigenous peoples in the colonial period, and that "barbacoa" became "barbecue" in the lexicon of early settlers.

The History of Barbecue in the South

[foodandhistory]

Manti // Manti, dumplings found in Central Asia from Afghanistan to Turkey, where I first enjoyed them, have their roots in the Uighur mantou, which could possibly be derived from older traditions of Chinese dumplings:

It is likely that the recipe originated with the Uighurs in China, who have long prepared a dish called "mantau," a name which, in their language, means "bread prepared in steam...

In modern Chinese cooking, mantau still exist. Today, they are usually prepared without filling, although evidence exists that this dish was once prepared with filling – perhaps something more similar to the modern Chinese boazi, which is closer to modern манты in appearance...

The Mongols, for instance, consider манты a national dish, although in the Mongol language they are called "buuz." Interestingly, the Mongols also have a meatless version of the dish which they refer to as "mantuun buuz," which sounds like it could be a mixed version of the two Chinese names "mantau" and "boazi."...

Манты are eaten in Turkey as well, although the Turks often refer to them as "tartar bureks," with "burek" being a Turkish fried or baked stuffed pastry, but "Tartar" being an equestrian people native to southern Siberia. In Irkutsk in southeastern Russia, they are known by the native Buryat name of "позы " (pozi). Most Central Asians, and Russians, however, consistently refer to the food with some variation of the name "манты."

Josh Wilson and Andrei Nesterov - Manti, More Than Just Another Dumpling

It's noteworthy that the манты of Central Asia is quite larger than the smaller, ravioli-like manta of Turkey, as show above.