I know of their exploits in the creation of steak Tartare, but what about Tartar sauce? Cream of Tartar? Were The barbarians really skilled chefs who cooked Rome into the dark ages?
Cecil answered this here: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtartar.html
Ah, haha, thanks guys!
Just wanted to point out that Tartar is a deliberate misspelling of the name of the Tatar people. There’s properly no r in the middle of Tatar. Medieval Europeans made a pun using the name of Hell in Greek, Tartaros, as if to imply that Tatars are people from Hell. The good citizens of the Tatarstan Republic in Russia would, I think, take exception to this ethnic slur.
No, but they did invent Steak Tartare, which gave them taratr on their teeth.
Sorry, but Dogster’s mailbag piece begs the question: whence the name “tartaric acid” (and hence tooth tartar, cream of tartar, etc.)? He never says, and my Webster’s has no derivation.