[Closed] Does the octupus change name once in your plate?

Not too sure what you're getting at, apart from the maddest thread title ever, but there is a tradition in the English language of a meat being one name when on the beast and another on the plate. For example, cow and beef or pig and pork.

No. Octopus when alive, still an octopus when in a fritto misto.

Same goes for all seafood that I can immediately think of.

same word.

True, Bez, but there is the octopus/calamari issue to address. OK, so calamari is usually squid or sometimes baby octopoodles, but who's quibbling!

Octopie?

I think I heard it once that the name of the meat is an anglification of a French word (we have the Normans to thank for that, I believe); while the name of the animal is Anglo-Saxon, Norse or whatever was the local language before 1066

Hence beef - boeuf, pork - porc, gammon - jambon.

but i could also be talking out of my ar$e

Calamari is always squid - it's the Italian word for squid. But if it's on your plate and you're not borrowing other languages it's still squid, same as it is when it's alive.

of course, in Scotland, once the octopus has been dressed & cooked, they use it to make a weird screeling sound that apparently terrifies their enemies...

John_drummer, you're spot on, that is the etymological history right there.

CFH I was aware of the meat one (as the food name is derive from the latin root, because only the nobility could afford meat, and they were all french 😉 ) but I was wondering about seafood. Well I know octopus/squid are different animals.
But thanks for the info. So octopus is octopus is octopus 😀

Thanks everyone. Once again the source of knowledge that STW is have fulfilled its purpose 😀

D'ooo not fast enough 😀

juan, if your SO ever wants to talk to a trained English teacher in Nice, email me!

Yeah, it does actually. Dave.

Az... in the naughty corner LOL

Anyone else worried Juan just activated a KGB sleeper cell?

john_drummond/flashie - no you're not quite right, bagpipe is the gaelic word for

inflated octopus

sassenachs

CaptainFlashheart - Member
True, Bez, but there is the octopus/calamari issue to address. OK, so calamari is usually squid or sometimes baby octopoodles, but who's quibbling!

So far as I am aware, CFH, calamari is ALWAYS squid where we eat (lately in Epirus). Calamaria is never Octopus.

what about the Northumbrian pipes? emasculated octopus? 😉

Inflated then deflated, we call them
sassenachs

LOL! 😆

I think I heard it once that the name of the meat is an anglification of a French word (we have the Normans to thank for that, I believe); while the name of the animal is Anglo-Saxon, Norse or whatever was the local language before 1066

That was on QI.

don't eat them, they are dying out.

"Your helicopter is made of cheese"

fit it with a rock!

I dare say it was on QI but that wasn't where I heard/read it - I've never seen the programme

Maybe his leg had just grow?

Anyone else worried Juan just activated a KGB sleeper cell?

Made me laugh.

kelvin - Member

Anyone else worried Juan just activated a KGB sleeper cell?

Made me laugh.

molgrips - Member

That was on QI.

my mum told me that about 25 years ago...

dining room = french words like table.

kitchen = 'english' words like board (meaning table)

cos the french nobles were in the dining room speaking french, eating food prepared in the kitchen by 'english' staff.

Generally, the beast is the Anglo word and the meat is the French derived word but this didnt start until the 19th century. Up to then the words were interchangeable. Anyway, isnt Octopus on a plate called Calamari?

I thought calamari was a dish containing certain cephalopods, rather than the meat itself..?

Dunno, I cant stand seafood so i'm no expert.