Food names

[red750]

The old argument over what we call food has resurfaced.

 

McDonalds has a new item on the menu for summer - Potato scallops. In NSW maybe.

 

But in Victoria, they are potato cakes (potato cooked in batter). Scallops (as per the dictionary definition) are bivalve shellfish such as mussels.

 

In SA, they are fritters.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Scallopini - thin slices

 

N.S.W. had more Italian migrants. (OME, was it a Italian derivation?)

[Jerry_Atrick]

Melb had more greek migrants... More cake..

 

Not many F&Cs here habe potato cakes, but they call the scallops (and pronounce the "a" as in scallywags...)

 

3 of them are £2.45 but I missed them so much, I bought them.. and they were disgusting.. nothing like Aussie F&Cs... except they were thin slices of potato.

[old man emu]

Scallop seems to relate more to the shape than anything else. As a noun is is likely to be from Old French escalope "shell (of a nut)," a variant of eschalope, which probably is from a Germanic source such as Old Norse skalpr "sheath,"  and Middle Dutch schelpe "shell". Can you see "skull" lurking there? The meaning extended in the 17th Century to objects shaped or ornaments cut like scallop shells, especially in design and dress. The shells of the larger species, often colorfully marked, have been used as domestic utensils.

 

It is used in cookery as a verb, "to bake or brown with sauce in a scallop-shell-shaped pan," by 1737. Originally  relating to cooked oysters and the notion might have been baking or serving them in a large scallop shell.

 

I'm not up on my Italian, but scaloppine is the plural form of the diminutive of scaloppa—a small slice of meat.

For the more frugal of us, I suppose you could try making scallopine using those minute sizzle steaks. After all, veal is pretty tasteless and in the finished dish, it's the sauce that gives the flavour.