[MR] What, pray tell, are beignets?

[Towey, Brian]

Dear Donal,

A beignet is something like a sopaipilla, but not as crunchy and sticky.

	From: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language:
Fourth Edition.  2000. 
	  
	beignet 
	SYLLABICATION: bei·gnet 
	VARIANT FORMS: also bei·gné 
	NOUN: (Southern Louisiana) 1. A square doughnut with no hole: "a New
Orleans coffeehouse selling beignets, an insidious Louisianian cousin of the
doughnut that exists to get powdered sugar on your face" (Los Angeles
Times). 2. A fritter.  
	ETYMOLOGY: French, fritter, of Celtic origin 

	sopaipilla
	SYLLABICATION: so·pai·pil·la 
	VARIANT FORMS: or so·pa·pil·la (-p-) 
	NOUN: A crisp, puffy, deep-fried pastry often served with honey or
syrup.  
	ETYMOLOGY: American Spanish, diminutive of Spanish sopaipa, fried
dough sweetened with honey, from earlier xopaipa, from Mozarabic xupaipa,
diminutive of úppa, súppa, bread soaked in oil, from Old Spanish sopa, food
soaked in liquid, of Germanic origin. See seu-2 in Appendix I.  

[From this etymology, I would venture to guess that sopaipilla is also
cognate with sop or soppy.]

-Charles Fleming
(whose low-carb lifestyle trembles at the mere thought of such things as hot
chocolate and beignets)