This thread is about eggs fried in a circle removed from a slice of toast, and it seems that everyone has a different name for it. What food has the greatest number of names? I don’t mean different varieties, but different names for the same food.
Hot dog, dog, red hot, frankfurter, frank, wiener, weenie, durger, coney?
Lox, gravlax, gravad lax, smoked salmon, cured salmon… okay, not so many there. Not without branching out into all the Scandinavian languages and their names for it, which I don’t think counts. And I know “smoked” salmon technically incorrect but people call it that all the time.
Hero, hoagie, grinder, submarine sandwich are all familiar to me, and according to Wikipedia, there are several more.
I’d say bread. Almost every culture has a bread-type product in its cuisine, and the bulk of the calories and nutrition are eaten in that form.
~VOW
Oh, I assumed the OP meant in the same language/culture. I think the inspiration for the other thread has the most synonyms of any single dish I have personally encountered, so that’s my nomination.
Runner up: booze/alcohol/hooch/demon water and the ever-popular “a drink.”
Honorable mention: pop/soda/soda pop/cola/Coke/bubbly
Breen. Every planet in the Galaxy has a different name for it.
French toast. As alluded to above, the hitch to this question is that obviously different countries tend to have their own names for a given food in their own language. What’s remarkable is when different countries have different names for the same thing even when translated back into English. It seems that almost every notable country has a different name for French toast. Here is just a sample, translated into English when necessary:
Czech Republic: bread in the little coat
France: lost bread
Germany: poor knights
Great Britain: eggy bread or gypsy toast
Hong Kong: Western toast
Hungary: fluffy bread
India (southern): Bombay toast
Pakistan: sweet toast
Quebec: golden bread
Turkey: breadfish
Obviously I didn’t understand the question.
HOWEVER: As the world has shrunk in size and cuisines easily traverse both borders and oceans, these various bread products have found their way to the United States, and oftentimes we have KEPT the original names.
Bread, tortillas, naan, baguette, injera, pita, matzoh, roti …
~VOW
Puma, catamount, mountain lion, painter, panther, cougar, mountain screamer, deer tiger, American lion, king cat, Mexican lion, mountain devil, silver lion…
What?
I still think op is asking about different names within one language. Like how many names are there in English for a sub sandwich? Sub, po-boy, grinder, etc.
I’ll have a mountain screamer on rye, hold the mayo.
Though there are subtle distinctions between some of those. For instance, in a sub, the roll is sliced into two pieces and stacked, while in a hoagie, it’s slit partway through, like a hot dog bun.