"Appetizing," "Appy" and Variations

[Andy Lynes]

Can't somebody ask the old guy next time they are in an Appetizing store? I can't find a damn thing on the net about this.

[robert brown]

You cannot leave as vital an issue as this is in the realm of "It could have happened this way, so let's leave it at that". This is an etymological concern that must be nailed down by getting as close as possible to the genesis of the use of the word among New York Jewry. Never give up. Call in the Safire Brigade. Go to 42nd Street if need be. Don't be a quitter.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Robert-Nope. I know a Yiddishism when I hear one. The store that sold appetizers, i.e. things that were appetizing to eat, i.e., delicious, as well as things that created an appetite was called an  "Appetizing" store.  What else could you call it? It couldn't be any clearer to me.

[Fat Guy]

Steve, for one thing you'd need to show that the term "appetizing" in that context was not in use prior to the existence of the relevant stores. Only then could we be sure that they are "appetizing" stores rather than stores that sell "appetizing." And that still explains only origins, not usage.

[Bux]

I'm not old enough to remember a time when every neighborhood in NYC with a sizeable Jewish population didn't have a store with a large sign that said "appetizing." That store specialized in fish preserved by smoking and pickling, but might have carried all sorts of other provisions short of meat. Exactly what else it carried may have depended on what else was adjacent or in the immediate area, but it generally sold the things that went with the fish at the table, although many neighborhoods might also have stores specializing in cheese or bagels, for instance. Choosey shoppers might go to the "butter and egg" store to buy the cream cheese. We knew what "appetizing" was just as we knew what "butter and eggs" were. There was no cream cheese store, per se, and we knew that cream cheese was neither butter, eggs, nor appetizing exactly.

I suppose it would be very interesting to find evidence of the earliest "Appetizing" sign. Someone had to be the first to open such a store with the sign over it that read "Appetizing." I don't suppose the sign first appeared over a section of the A&P, but we'll get an argument here that it might have. It's the nature of some of our posters. Now this guy with the first sign. My guess is that his ego was no so great that he thought his fish was so much more appetizing that the meat at the butcher or the pastries at the bakery. I'd guess his sign just identified his stock and that people knew they could get what they called "appetizing" at his shop.

[bloviatrix]

It seems we egulleters aren't the only ones pondering the origins of the term appetizing as evidenced by the following in today's Times.

[MarketStEl]

Over in the Pennsylvania forum, there's a discussion about a popular rye bread that has recently reappeared in some area supermarkets.

Some of the posters in the discussion speak of having purchased Pechter's rye bread at their store's "appy" counter.

I've encountered this term only once before, when I shopped for groceries at a Pathmark supermarket in South Philadelphia. The store used it to refer to its deli counter.

Now, I know what a "deli" is--it's a shortening of the German word "delicatessen," which in the US was used mainly to refer to stores in Jewish communities that sold sliced meats (if they were kosher) and cheeses (if they were not).

So where did "appy" come from?

This article on a New York web site gives details about the origins of "appy", but it seems that it described something different from yet related to a deli.

How did the two terms become interchangeable? And how did they manage to migrate to Philadelphia? Is "appy" used anywhere else?

(Edited to fix error in link)

Edited November 10, 2005 by MarketStEl (log)

[docsconz]

To me, an "appy" is an appendectomy. it is amazing that not everything has a food connotation for me

[jsolomon]

I know it as both an appendectomy and a Appaloosa horse. Isn't it also Cockney for happy?

[judiu]

I think the word might derive from "appetizing" and may well be a local usage, but I have also head the Deli counter at Publix referred to as the Appetizing Department. Go figure...

[Carrot Top]

I agree with judiu. The term also used to be used for Jewish delis in NYC - you would go get something from the "appetizing". Probably derives from the idea of having lots of "little things" to "take out" which could be added to a meal as appetizers.

[Oceangroveguy]

I was born in 1951 and grew up in Brooklyn. What we now think of as the deli section of the supermarket was called - at least by some chains - the "Appetizing" department. Waldbaums, a large local NY chain, used that name, and I am pretty sure the local branches of the A&P did, too.

Although not kosher, the departments sold Jewish soul food - lox and cream cheese, farmer cheese and pot cheese, salami and other smoked meats and smoked fish like whitefish, sable, herring, fish salads, etc.

I think they also sold roast beef and swiss and other conventional deli items, too.

I don't know if the term survives - the next time I take my mother to Waldbaums in Belle Harbor, Queens, I'll try to remember to look and report back.

[jsolomon]

Google says...

[kiliki]

Lol, it's an Appaloosa to me, too.

[Gifted Gourmet]

appy:  North Yorkshire phrase 

Definition: content with oneself

'appy as a pig in muck, very happy

North Yorkshire Voices glossary

scroll way way down for this one ...

[MarketStEl]

If you tried the link in my initial post and couldn't get through to the site, try it now. I've fixed the problem.

While you're there, go to his home page and check out all the trivia and ephemera on New Yorkisms and New York references, including a bunch of foodstuffs and food-related terms and phrases. There's even one for the "New York System" hot dog, which is unique to Providence, R.I.

...and, of course, there's a listing for the "New York Cut sirloin steak." The term, it appears, originated in San Francisco. In most of the material in this entry, the steak is never referred to as a "New York strip"; for the definitive reason why (and a vindication of my own peckishness when exposed to the term), I offer a letter from a New York Times reader that ends this entry:

9 January 1991, New York Times, pg. C4 (letters):

Name That Steak

To the Living Section:

Regarding Molly O’Neill’s De Gustibus column “In Search of New York Steak?” Ask Anywhere but New York” (Jan. 2), a New York steak may be a shell steak, and it may be a sirloin steak, but it is not a strip steak, because a strip steak is a Kansas City steak. Bon appetit!

STUART TARLOWE

Clifton, N.J.

(emphasis added)

[Chris Amirault]

I just merged an older thread on the word "appetizer" with the current thread. Check it out above: lots of interesting information!

[Carrot Top]

It is sad that the world has come to such a place where the term "appy" is in common use.

I think the source of the use of the original word "appetizing" is for one reason and one reason only.

Say it aloud right now in a NY Jewish accent.

It sounds good. It is the sort of word you want to say over and over again.

Now "appy"?

No. No.

[MarketStEl]

Having now rummaged through that earlier thread on "appetizing" fare and the stores that sold it:

Given that there was such a clear distinction between what an "appetizing store" sold and what a "delicatessen" sold, how on earth did supermarket operators come to refer to the latter with an abbreviation for the former?

I certainly don't remember seeing an abundance of smoked fish at the Pathmark deli on Oregon Avenue, yet I was at the store's "appy" counter.