[MR] beignet

[Olwen the Odd]

I forwarded the Celtic question on to the sca-cooks list.  Here is one of 
several answers.  If any others come along that are worth passing on, I 
shall.

Lady Olwen the Odd
Clan of Odds
House Blackstar
Bright Hills Cooks Guild
Order of the Pearl
Barony of Bright Hills
Kingdom of Atlantia!



>From: johnna holloway <johnna at sitka.engin.umich.edu>
>Reply-To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
>Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] beignet
>Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 19:48:28 -0400
>
>OED gives it as:
>beignet benye. Cookery. [Fr. ] A fritter.
>      1835 Irving Tour Prairies xxxiii.
>  306 We..supped heartily upon stewed buffalo
>  meat,..beignets, or fritters of flour fried
>      in bear's lard.
>
>Which seems to indicate a rather late 19th
>century origin. John Mariani gives it as
>1835 too.
>
>However, beignet is also mentioned in this
>even more interesting entry under FART--
>
>  A ball of light pastry, a `puff'.
>  Obs. Cf. F. pet `beignet en boule.'
>  1552 Huloet, Fartes of Portingale, or other
>  like swete conceites, collybia.
>
>It's even within the period...
>
>Under Bun... it's listed within the entry--
>
>bun bn, sb.2 Forms: 4-7 bunne, 5 bonn(e, 8-9 bunn, 5- bun.
>[Etymology doubtful. The mod. provincial Fr. bugne is said by
>Burguy and by Boiste (1840), to be used at Lyons for a sort
>of fritter; the word is not recorded in OFr. with this sense, but
>bugne, beugne (== mod. bigne) occurs with the sense of
>`swelling produced by a blow'; the dim. bugnete is found in OFr. with
>the sense of `fritter', and bugnets given by Cotgr. (1611)
>as a synonym of bignets (now beignets), explained by him as `little
>round loaves, or lumpes made of fine meale, oyle or butter,
>  and reasons; bunnes, Lenten loaves'. (Cf. Sp. bunuelo bun,
>fritter.) It is conjectured that OFr. bugne, originally
>`swelling' may have had the unrecorded sense of `puffed loaf' (=bugnet),
>and may have been adopted into English as bun.
>But the existence of this sense in OFr. is at present
>hypothetical, and it is questionable whether such
>  a derivation would account for the form of the Eng. word. ]
>
>I checked FRITTER but the associations are all old French.
>I don't know where the Celtic comes in.
>
>Johnnae llyn Lewis  Johnna Holloway
>


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