Thursday, September 10, 2009

Mesclun

Mesclun: Many words carry more grandeur and pretense than meaning. Medicine and gourmet culinary arts are two areas full of these fancy, but empty words. Consider, my personal favorite: idiopathic. This is a fancy word to describe a disease that the medical profession is clueless about. If your doctor tell you you have an idiopathic headache, this means that your head hurts and she doesn't know why. In the same vein, we have mesclun (sharing its etymology with meddle). Mesclun is a fancy word for mixed greens.
He came out of the kitchen wearing a green Whole Foods apron and holding out his hands, which were wet and stuck with tiny bits of mesclun.

No comments: