I’ve lived in western Iowa or eastern Nebraska my whole life and never heard of Maid-rites and similar being called “taverns”. Maid-Rites originated in Iowa and sloppy joe’s were what was fed to us at grade school on the rare day that we had an actual hot meal. Where were you and when were you in Nebraska that you got all this naming backwards?
And while this area isn’t known for specialty BBQ, a barbecue sandwich would never be confused with a sloppy joe or maid-rite. BBQ is meat meeting smoke and fire. Sloppy joe meets a pan. Even we know that.
At the moment, in America, yes. In parts of the world I’ve lived where UK English dominated (mainly Cyprus, plus Indian cookbooks written for the UK market), the whole plant, seeds and all, is called “coriander”. I’m just not sure when the distinction came to be in US English - my parents call the leaves coriander but they also spent their formative years in UK-English surrounds.
Oh pfft! Backwards. Doesn’t living in the area automatically qualify one as backwards?
I was living in a little college town called Wayne, in the Northeast corner, during the Seventies. Everyone there and in all the nearby towns (which also began with double-yous,) called them taverns.
I suspect that it was because they were cheap food which taverns served. A little sumpin to prove you weren’t just there to soak up the suds.
You are fortunate to know the difference between smoked meat and meat cooked in a pan. But many of the farmers of Southern MN and Northern IA call sloppy joes “barbecues.”
Which raises the question of whether my little Johnny is the only one in the whole marching band who isn’t out of step or not. Should one move into one of those insular little farming communities I’d tread carefully, and did, in informing them they had the wrong name. Yah gotta fit in or nobody will sit by you in the, um, tavern.
Channa has always been an alternate name, and is the genus name for the snakeheads in taxonomy. It is derived from the Greek term for “anchovy”.
It’s another case of playing down an “unappetizing” name in favor of a synonym, but in this case the scientific/alternate name had been used all along, and is just turning into the more common usage.
Well, apologies to Tethered Kite. I guess some parts of Nebraska and Iowa are as backward as Southern Minnesota.
I remember some 30 odd years ago when I worked for a hotel that gave out free drinks in the evening. Strange northern folks always wanted Brandy in their drinks instead of Bourbon. I thought that pretty odd. And now, come to find out, they didn’t know a sloppy joe from a barbecue sandwich.
Now I am curious if I know anyone with relatives from that area, to ask if those names still apply.
Yep. Wisconsin, especially seems to be pretty big with brandy in their drinks. Go to a Wisconsin bar and ask for an old fashioned, and it’s usually made with brandy instead of rye or bourbon. According to a quick google search (although I can’t find any hard sources), it says that Wisconsin is responsible for 90% of brandy consumption in the US.
About a year and a half ago Dad came grocery shopping with Mom and I. He loudly pronounced he was going to get some nigger toes and I almost flipped on him. I can’t believe he still thinks he can say that in public.
Also, there’s a town round these parts with the motto ‘Land of Rape and Honey’. If I’m feeling particularly juvenile or rude I’ll point and yell ‘Rape!’ when driving past a canola field.
I’m not old enough for a lot of the wording changes, but what about yam and sweet potato? Or is that just a regionalism?
I’ve never in my life heard it called “pocket bread”. Is this one of those conservative American knee-jerk re-namings like “freedom fries” or “freedom cabbage” because pita sounds too Taliban-ish?
Anyway, while most “pocket bread” would be pita by any other name, not all pita is a pocket bread. Most supermarkets up here in Canada always carry two kinds of pita, one of which is pocketless (usually known as Greek-style pita).
In my experience, “yams” when referring to sweet potatoes is typically just in the phrase “candied yams.” It’s pretty unusual to hear just the uncooked sweet potato itself to be called a “yam.” Of course, there will no doubt be any number of people who will say, “That’s the only way I’ve ever heard it.”
Locally, yams are marketed in grocery stores under the name “ñame.”
