Strange Words For Food Amounts

[Fantastic Mr Fox]

What about the ever popular measurement of a spreadable solid...the shmear? i.e, "I'll have that bagel with a shmear of butter or cream cheese" or "Would you like a shmear of jelly on that toast?"

[andiesenji]

That's a wonderful peck-splanation Andie, thank-you. I'd never seen a tobacco farm until the summer of 1988 when I bicycled through Bardstown, KY. It was a beautifully lush place with giant leaves draped all over the place. Oh great, now I'm having a cigar fantasy.

Your story reminded me of our own fall potato harvest in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. My kids dig them up like Easter eggs, filling all kinds of containers. I found a good picture from October 2007 showing the woody half-peck and the adaptable plastic milk crate.

Great photo, Peter.

One advantage of the split wood baskets is that a large number can be stacked (nested) as they are tapered just enough so that they fit closely into one another. I can remember stacks of baskets from floor to ceiling in the "drying" shed - a building with a raised floor made of what we might now call "duck" boards and walls that were fixed louvered slats. It had a galvanized roof and us kids loved to play in there when it rained. The roof overhang all around was extended so it was like playing in a tent with water walls.

[andiesenji]

Has anyone mentioned "stoup" or "stoop?"

Several of my medieval recipes specify a stoup or stoop of mead, so it is obviously a liquid measure.

I have no idea the true volume but in reading the recipe it would appear to be somewhere close to a half-gallon.

I also have one rather large recipe that calls for a hogshead of "small" ale.

Not sure how big or small ale is supposed to be but I do know the volume of a hogshead...

[David A. Goldfarb]

My grandmother used those wooden bushel baskets for the apples and plums from her backyard trees on the East Side of Cleveland. I Googlemapped the house to see if the trees were still there, and it looks like the apple tree is gone, but it was quite old as I recall, so it probably expired due to natural causes.

[Peter the eater]

Has anyone mentioned "stoup" or "stoop?"

Several of my medieval recipes specify a stoup or stoop of mead, so it is obviously a liquid measure.

I have no idea the true volume but in reading the recipe it would appear to be somewhere close to a half-gallon.

I also have one rather large recipe that calls for a hogshead of "small" ale.

Not sure how big or small ale is supposed to be but I do know the volume of a hogshead...

The mere mention of a hogshead got me singing the Beatles: "Over men and horses hoops and garters, Lastly through a hogshead of real fire! In this way Mr. K. will challenge the world!". I'm unclear if that's the same unit of volume.

A "stoop of mead" is uttered in the 2008 theatrical release of the Viking film Outlander. Oddly enough, I'm a background performer (aka extra) in that movie and wrote about the food in this eGullet topic.

I must ask, how many medieval recipes do you have?

[andiesenji]

I must ask, how many medieval recipes do you have?

Too many to count. I have several facsimile books from http://www.acanthus-books.com/fourfifcen.html

and have a lot copied from different web sites that I found at least 15 years ago.

Like this one: http://recipes.medievalcookery.com/

Some of the sites were organized as newsgroups before the internet coalesced and a lot of the fees I spend on CompuServe back in the old days was to download recipes.

On a very slow modem!

Edited January 15, 2010 by andiesenji (log)

[Mr Pie]

I would like to contribute "punnet," which is the basket-like container you buy berries in. I think it's a British term, I learned it from my Aussie husband. Interestingly, he also uses it for half-gallon containers (or whatever the metric size would be, 2000 ml?) of ice cream.

I can second punnet, always used for soft berries (in the UK at least). Its bigger brother is the chip. You can get around 6 punnets in a chip. It is a minefield of units over here, we have sort of gone metric, but still stick with imperial when we can (just in case metric doesn't catch on?). Large quantities of vegetables (particulary root veg) can be purchased by the stone, which is 14lb. Onions are often purchased by the net.

Cooked shellfish is often purchased by the pint (or half pint).

[Mr Pie]

Has anyone mentioned "stoup" or "stoop?"

Several of my medieval recipes specify a stoup or stoop of mead, so it is obviously a liquid measure.

I have no idea the true volume but in reading the recipe it would appear to be somewhere close to a half-gallon.

I also have one rather large recipe that calls for a hogshead of "small" ale.

Not sure how big or small ale is supposed to be but I do know the volume of a hogshead...

That is one BIG recipe, a hogshead is around 50 gallons!

[toweringpine]

The term 'small beer' refers to the strength of the brew. Small beer was generally below 3% alcohol and was commonly drank with breakfast in times when the water was less safe to drink or by children at any time of day.

[Kayakado]

this thread just made me feel VERY old. We were supposed to learn volume measurement in 5th grade (I failed). Bushel and peck featured prominently as some that I could just not get straight.

[andiesenji]

Has anyone mentioned "stoup" or "stoop?"

Several of my medieval recipes specify a stoup or stoop of mead, so it is obviously a liquid measure.

I have no idea the true volume but in reading the recipe it would appear to be somewhere close to a half-gallon.

I also have one rather large recipe that calls for a hogshead of "small" ale.

Not sure how big or small ale is supposed to be but I do know the volume of a hogshead...

That is one BIG recipe, a hogshead is around 50 gallons!

It's a recipe for spiced ale that is "boyled" in a cauldron with honey, fruits and spices and set to "werking" with a boll of yeasted dough floated in the vessel. When the boll sinks to the bottom, (about a "sennight") the ale should be strained through a hair screen and transferred to jugs. It was heated before serving.

As toweringpine notes, small ale was (and is) low alcohol content ale, considered suitable for women and children. This recipe probably increases the alcohol content a fair bit!

Edited January 15, 2010 by andiesenji (log)

[rooftop1000]

One strange one I have seen is a "nut" of butter or sometimes specified a "walnut" of butter.

And the simple "glass" of...sherry, wine, madeira,...I mean how big of a glass do you serve madeira in?

tracey

[Barry Foy]

"WINE BOTTLES: Although wine bottles were standardized to a 750ml capacity some years ago, specialty vintners still custom-bottle larger quantities as prescribed by tradition. Little known outside wine circles, these larger bottles are the Magnum (equivalent to two standard bottles), the Jeroboam (four bottles), the Pandemonium (five bottles), the Antimacassar (six bottles), the Malfeasium (seven bottles), the Pickaninny (eight bottles), and the

Nibelungen (ten bottles)."

from The Devil's Food Dictionary

[jgm]

Seems like I'm often running into someone writing about "great lashings" of something, usually mayonnaise.

Is a "great lashing" a measurement, or more a description of someone using mayo, damn the calories?

[andiesenji]

One strange one I have seen is a "nut" of butter or sometimes specified a "walnut" of butter.

And the simple "glass" of...sherry, wine, madeira,...I mean how big of a glass do you serve madeira in?

tracey

In this photo there is a wine glass that my great-grandmother used as a measure.

Filled to the brim it holds 4 ounces. It was new in 1890.

http://forums.egullet.org/uploads/1198893418/gallery_17399_60_251431.jpg

I have a smaller "sherry" glass that holds slightly less than two ounces. It is early 19th century and the same style of "trumpet-shaped" glass was popular through the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It was considered the "proper" sized glass to serve fortified wines to ladies. (sherry, madeira, port, marsala as well as homemade orange wine, etc.)

Edited January 15, 2010 by andiesenji (log)

[nakji]

I have never, ever known what a "fifth" of vodka, gin, etc. meant. I've always assumed it's an imperial liquid measurement, although I've never bothered to look it up. It sounds really dramatic, though, as in - "I went home last night, drank a fifth of gin, and fell asleep in the bathtub." Or similar.

And how about "mickeys" of liquor? We used to call those small 300 ml bottles of vodka "mickeys" when I was in university. As in, "Slip a mickey of Smirnoff in your pocket and let's walk down to the Lower Deck." Good times.

[Peter the eater]

I don't say "a fifth" too often, but you're right it does sound like a serious amount. I'd say "twenty-sixer" to indicate a 750ml bottle of liquor. As for "mickey", I figure it's Hibernophobic like paddywagon.

ETA I was at the Lower Deck last week, no Smirnoff though, just a pint of Keith's.

Edited January 16, 2010 by Peter the eater (log)

[nakji]

Gak! Hibernophobic? Is it a really a slur - considering it's the smallest amount of liquor you can buy in a go?

[Blether]

Isn't a fifth, a fifth of a gill ? Or did I imagine it ?

[andiesenji]

A "fifth" is one-fifth of a gallon U.S. 750 ml a gallon is 3750 ml.

At one time a "fifth" ordered in a bar was one-fifth of a gill.

[kayb]

Andie, if you grew up on a farm in Western Kentucky (I grew up on one in West Tennessee, and I'm not sure why one is "west" and one is "western," but that's the case), you are certainly familiar with the very exacting measurement -- the "mess." Which, of course, is enough to feed however many there are for dinner, a "big mess" being enough to do so and have leftovers.

I always heard "mess" used to refer to vegetables, fish or game birds; never to domesticated animal flesh, and only rarely to fruit (I believe I remember hearing about a "mess" of fried apples). Not sure why that was so.

[andiesenji]

Andie, if you grew up on a farm in Western Kentucky (I grew up on one in West Tennessee, and I'm not sure why one is "west" and one is "western," but that's the case), you are certainly familiar with the very exacting measurement -- the "mess." Which, of course, is enough to feed however many there are for dinner, a "big mess" being enough to do so and have leftovers.

I always heard "mess" used to refer to vegetables, fish or game birds; never to domesticated animal flesh, and only rarely to fruit (I believe I remember hearing about a "mess" of fried apples). Not sure why that was so.

Yes, a mess of fish, crawfish, frog legs, or squirrels, a mess of greens or green beans, etc., usually referred to a batch of fairly small foods that was sufficient to feed several people. Game birds were in "braces" but squabs were a "gaiter" (gather) consisting of a dozen and a term I think was confined to the area where I grew up in Livingston county (once the gateway to the Illinois territory). My ancestors settled there in pre-revolutionary times and I think carried their terms for things from Virginia and North Carolina. They are descended from Jamestown Colony "adventurers."

Edited January 16, 2010 by andiesenji (log)

[Peter the eater]

Gak! Hibernophobic? Is it a really a slur - considering it's the smallest amount of liquor you can buy in a go?

"Mickey" may have nothing to do with Ireland, and I'm not sure Hibernophobic is a real word. If you "take the mickey out of someone" you're teasing them, again, maybe a totally different thing.

There are some good words to describe a large boozy sip, like swig, snort or belt.

[haresfur]

I have never, ever known what a "fifth" of vodka, gin, etc. meant. I've always assumed it's an imperial liquid measurement, although I've never bothered to look it up. It sounds really dramatic, though, as in - "I went home last night, drank a fifth of gin, and fell asleep in the bathtub." Or similar.

And how about "mickeys" of liquor? We used to call those small 300 ml bottles of vodka "mickeys" when I was in university. As in, "Slip a mickey of Smirnoff in your pocket and let's walk down to the Lower Deck." Good times.

Oh! I'd forgotten about Mickeys! And a really large bottle (3 L??) was a "Texas Mickey". Alcohol does seem to breed weird slang or units - magnum and all those other wine bottle sizes. And I've heard for a 24 bottle case of beer: a flat, a slab, a two-four, and I'm sure there are others.

ETA: Is mickey a Winnipeg thing?

Edited January 17, 2010 by haresfur (log)

[andiesenji]

Several years ago there was a beer named Mickey's or had it as part of the name sold here in southern California. It came is a squat, green bottle with a wide mouth and I think was referred to as "wide-mouth mickey."

The only connection I knew with the name and liquor was a "Mickey Finn" aka knock-out drink. It seemed like a familiar theme in the gangster films of the '30s, '40s and '50s was "slip him a mickey" to put someone to sleep but not permanently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Finn_%28drugs%29