Ceviche

On Fri, 16 May 2008 13:20:38 +0100, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:

wrote:

Interesting. I don't see how ceviche (sah/suh-vee-che/chee) could have
come from escabeche (s-kaa-beash) other than via written form (as
opposed to via common speech).

I disagree there. Words change a lot in oral transmission.

That alone makes me have some question
as to the connection. I've heard it (ceviche) was a native Americas
dish and term, but not from linguistic experts - sometimes, however,
laypeople know a hell of a lot more than experts, and often, even if
they are a bit fuzzy on details, the kernel of the facts are correct.
I'd offer that the word "siwichi" makes more sense in practical terms,
but ???

As I remember it, Alan Davidson, editor of 'Petits Propos Culinaires',
argued the derivation from the Latin in his 'Oxford Companion to Food'.

The SF writer Paula Wolfert then took some exceptions to this and a
number of other points of Davidson's in an article in 'Food and
Foodways' some years ago (I don't have access to these at the moment -
they're not online and I'm at home and writing from memory and notes).

Wolfert wrote :

"This" (Davidson's etymology) "is incorrect. Ceviche or seviche is
nothing but a Mediterranean method of preserving raw fish. The Latin
American Spanish word seviche or ceviche comes from the Iberian Spanish
escabeche, also called schebbeci in Sicily, a word that means
³marinated fish.²"


The Peruvian derivation from escabeche de cebolla comes from a
discussion some years ago with Victor de la Serna, who edits the wine
column for El Mundo

http://elmundovino.elmundo.es/elmundovino/

-- de la Serna was only saying that the etymology was the subject of
much heated discussion in Peru, and that this was one possible
derivation.

I agree that the Quecha derivation ( which I think came from a fairly
unauthratative source)is appealing , but that doesn't mean it's true!
There's often a great sentimental nationalistic interest in claiming
native derivations.

I'm not Peruvian or Quechuan, and I have no national interest in the
matter. I do not _know_ where "ceviche" came from, and apparently, the
issue is up for debate, but based on what I do know, I'll stick with a
native word as the origin as most likely until something concrete shows
up. I will disagree strongly with Wolfert as an "expert" - ceviche, as
I know it (and as most of the Americas knows it) is by no means a method
of preserving fish, Mediterranean or otherwise. I would not eat ceviche
that had been around a week at room temp...YKMV...how many kilometers is
it to the nearest hospital for you...?

Ah well. Time for lunch. It's Friday, and I was going to get some
sardines from the fishmonger in Brixton, but now you've put me off....

Good Appetite

Lazarus

TC,
R

On Fri, 16 May 2008 10:24:00 -0500, wrote:



I'm not Peruvian or Quechuan,

Should be "I'm not Peruvian nor do I speak Quechuan..."

R

In article ,
wrote:


I'm not Peruvian nor do I speak Quechuan, and I have no national interest in the
matter. I do not _know_ where "ceviche" came from, and apparently, the
issue is up for debate, but based on what I do know, I'll stick with a
native word as the origin as most likely until something concrete shows
up.

Fine. I don't know the derivation either. I'll keep an open mind. In
fact I'll probably do more, and dig a little deeper. But derivations
are tricky things, and without evidence they often remain unsure.

In this case, I think the majority is against you, but that doesn't
mean you're wrong.

I will disagree strongly with Wolfert as an "expert" - ceviche, as
I know it (and as most of the Americas knows it) is by no means a method
of preserving fish, Mediterranean or otherwise.

You're welcome to disagree with Paula Wolfert as an "expert". By the
way she's not, as far as I know, European. She's based in San
Francisco. She's written a lot of books about food and its history,
both popular and academic. She might even know more about ceviche, and
have done more research about its origins, than either you or I.

http://www.paula-wolfert.com/about.html

I thought you might have heard of her.


I would not eat ceviche
that had been around a week at room temp...

No, we weren't talking about that. We were talking about the derivation
of the word, which has been around for many hundreds of years.

Words change, not only their form, but also their meaning. See, for
example, 'nice'. Goes back to the Latin 'nescius' - 'ignorant'.
Probably comes from an IE root which has something to do with 'cut'.
In Old French it meant 'silly'. Later it meant 'fastidious'. Now it
means.....

....well ** 'nice'.

Lazarus

"Lazarus Cooke" wrote in message
news:160520081652028714%lazaruscooke@britishlibrar y.invalid...


Words change, not only their form, but also their meaning. See, for
example, 'nice'. Goes back to the Latin 'nescius' - 'ignorant'.
Probably comes from an IE root which has something to do with 'cut'.
In Old French it meant 'silly'. Later it meant 'fastidious'....

Related to the latter sense, it can also be more or less synonymous with
"fine" as in a "nice" distinction......of which this is a nice enough
example, I suppose.

Wolfgang
from the we-be-words desk.

In article , Wolfgang
wrote:

Related to the latter sense, it can also be more or less synonymous with
"fine" as in a "nice" distinction......of which this is a nice enough
example, I suppose.

Nice one!

:L

On Fri, 16 May 2008 16:52:02 +0100, Lazarus Cooke
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:


I'm not Peruvian nor do I speak Quechuan, and I have no national interest in the
matter. I do not _know_ where "ceviche" came from, and apparently, the
issue is up for debate, but based on what I do know, I'll stick with a
native word as the origin as most likely until something concrete shows
up.

Fine. I don't know the derivation either. I'll keep an open mind. In
fact I'll probably do more, and dig a little deeper. But derivations
are tricky things, and without evidence they often remain unsure.

And that's my feeling - I don't think that a definitive answer will be
had as I doubt there is any definitive evidence to be found.

In this case, I think the majority is against you, but that doesn't
mean you're wrong.

Doesn't mean I'm right, either, but as you might have gathered, I'm
really not concerned about the majority in matters subjective.

I will disagree strongly with Wolfert as an "expert" - ceviche, as
I know it (and as most of the Americas knows it) is by no means a method
of preserving fish, Mediterranean or otherwise.

You're welcome to disagree with Paula Wolfert as an "expert". By the
way she's not, as far as I know, European. She's based in San
Francisco. She's written a lot of books about food and its history,
both popular and academic. She might even know more about ceviche, and
have done more research about its origins, than either you or I.

She might. But not if she says what your quote indicated, IMO.

http://www.paula-wolfert.com/about.html

I thought you might have heard of her.


I would not eat ceviche
that had been around a week at room temp...

No, we weren't talking about that. We were talking about the derivation
of the word, which has been around for many hundreds of years.

Perhaps I misread your quote about what she wrote. I appears you are
saying she said:

"Ceviche or seviche is nothing but a Mediterranean method of preserving
raw fish."

There may well be another "ceviche" of which I am not aware, but the
ceviche of which I am aware and have been discussing is neither
Mediterranean or a method of preserving raw fish if preserving is taken
in the standard sense. I'd offer that the ceviche in question would do
very little to preserve raw fish and that there is no question that the
dish "ceviche" is from the Americas, not the Mediterranean region, even
if the word "ceviche" does have its origins there.

Words change, not only their form, but also their meaning. See, for
example, 'nice'. Goes back to the Latin 'nescius' - 'ignorant'.
Probably comes from an IE root which has something to do with 'cut'.
In Old French it meant 'silly'. Later it meant 'fastidious'. Now it
means.....

....well ** 'nice'.

It would seem to me that if there is a native word, siwichi, that
describes the dish "ceviche" (or more telling, IMO, "seviche"), logic
says the word "ceviche" is most likely, but not absolutely, from the
native word, rather than a sorta-close Spanish word that isn't really
the same dish (albeit variants of escabeche sharing ingredient(s) with
ceviche). But hey, I could be wrong.

TC,
R

Lazarus