Cooking and recipes

Two thirds of the way down this list sits l’aglio, and it is the one kitchen word here that English did not take from the same place as everybody else. Latin allium went straight into aglio, and into the Spanish, French and Portuguese words beside it. English kept something of its own: « garlic » is Old English gārlēac, built from gār, a spear, and lēac, a leek — the leek with the spear-shaped leaf. None of that is audible today, though the second half still stands on its own in « leek ». Then look at this page’s own example, due spicchi d’aglio. A spicchio of garlic is a « clove », and there the spelling is playing a trick. This « clove » is clufu, a piece cleft off something bigger, and it belongs with the verb « cleave ». The « clove » that goes into mulled wine is a different word entirely, taken from French clou, a nail, after the shape of the dried bud. English therefore keeps two unrelated cloves in one spice rack. Italian never had the collision, because lo spicchio is simply a segment — of garlic, and of an orange.