aspic
pronunciation
How to pronounce aspic in British English:
UK [ˈæspɪk]
How to pronounce aspic in American English:
US [ ˈæspɪk]
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- Noun:
- savory jelly based on fish or meat stock used as a mold for meats or vegetables
Word Origin
- aspic
- aspic: [18] Aspic was borrowed from French, where, like the archaic English asp which reputedly bit Cleopatra, it also means ‘snake’ (ultimately from Greek aspís). This has led to speculation that aspic the jelly was named from aspic the snake on the basis that the colours and patterns in which moulds of aspic were made in the 18th and 19th centuries resembled a snake’s coloration.There does not appear to be any watertight evidence for this rather far-fetched theory, and perhaps more plausible is some connection with French aspic ‘lavender, spikenard’, formerly used for flavouring aspic, or with Greek aspís ‘shield’ (source of aspidistra [19]), on the basis that the earliest aspic moulds were shield-shaped.
- aspic (n.)
- "savory meat jelly," 1789, from French aspic "jelly" (18c.), literally "asp," from Old French aspe (see asp) + ending from basilisc "basilisk" (the two creatures sometimes were confused with one another). The foodstuff said to be so called from its coldness (froid comme un aspic is said by Littré to be a proverbial phrase), or the colors in the gelatin, or the shape of the mold. It also was a French word for "lavendar spike" and might refer to this as a seasoning element.
Example
- 1. Yes , I 'd like a smoked fish , aspic , cold cucumber with garlic .
- 2. The weather is cold , batteries gives aspic small !
- 3. For openers , quail eggs in aspic with caviar was a tidbit that a surviving diner had enjoyed in titanic 's a la carte restaurant that fatal evening .
- 4. Some of the most popular of today 's schemes-such as paying employers to cut hours rather than jobs , as in germany-try to preserve the labour force in aspic .
- 5. If you were of this mindset , you 'd have been in heaven in victorian times , when there were aspic spoons and tomato spoons , sauce spoons and olive spoons , fluted gravy ladles , bon-bon spades , tea scoops , citrus spoons , and stilton scoops , among others .