Today’s word of the day is voracity. Voracity is a noun that means “the condition or quality of being voracious” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/voracity). As I have said before, I really do not like circular definitions like this. Now we have to look up voracious. Voracious is an adjective that means “craving or consuming large quantities of food” or “exceedingly eager or avid” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/voracious). So perhaps we have an adjective here that has undergone broadening, first referring exclusively to a strong appetite for food but then extending that to a strong appetite to consume things other than food, like books or movies. One of the things about this word is the order in which the varieties of the word entered the language.

Voracity entered the language in the “1520s, from French voracité (14c.) or directly from Latin voracitatem (nominative voracitas) ‘greediness, ravenousness,’ from vorax (genitive voracis) ‘greedy, ravenous, consuming,’ from vorare ‘to devour,’ from PIE *gwor-a-, from root *gwora- ‘food, devouring’” (https://www.etymonline.com/word/voracity). On the other hand, voracious entered the language in the “1630s, formed as an adjectival form of voracity” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=voracious). So despite what you might glean from the definitions at dictionary.com, voracity preceded voracious in English.

I also find it interesting to look at that Proto-IndoEuropean root, “*gwora-
“also *gwera-, Proto-Indo-European root meaning ‘food, devouring.’
It forms all or part of: carnivorous; devour; gorge; gurges; hellebore; herbivore; herbivorous; insectivore; locavore; omnivorous; voracious; voracity; -vorous.
It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit girati ‘devours, swallows,’ garah ‘drink;’ Avestan aspo-gar– ‘devouring horses,’ nere-gar– ‘devouring men;’ Greek bibrōskein ‘to eat, digest,’ brotos ‘edible,’ brosis ‘eating,’ bora ‘fodder;’ Latin vorare ‘to swallow, devour;’ Armenian e-ker ‘ate;’ Lithuanian gerti ‘to drink,’ gìrtas ‘drunk;’ Old Church Slavonic žiro ‘to swallow,’ grŭlo ‘gullet,’ po-žreti ‘to eat’ (of animals), ‘to devour’” (ibid.).

You might be thinking, that’s weird. But this is what linguists have found, that there are regular sound changes over time depending upon which language we’re talking about. The PIE consonant gw becomes a b in Greek, a g, ž [ʒ], or dz in Balto-Slavic languages, a v in Italic languages (like Latin), and a qu in Germanic languages. For instance, while voracity comes through the Italic part of the PIE family, bulimia also goes back to the PIE root of *gwora- but comes into English through Greek.

Twice now I have been to the UK with a travel group called Inklings Abroad. The group does a tour of the UK (and sometimes beyond) that always encompasses Oxford, including dinner at The Trout Inn, and Cornwall, specifically Coverack, a small village on the east side of the Lizard peninsula. The group usually hikes from Kynance Cove to Lizard Point along the coast. It was during my first trip with the Inklings Abroad that I was introduced to Cornish pasties.

The word pasty appeared in the English language around “1300, ‘a type of meat pie, a pie covered with paste or pie crust,’ especially one of venison or other seasoned meat, from Old French paste ‘dough, pastry,’ from Vulgar Latin *pastata ‘meat wrapped in pastry’ from Latin pasta ‘dough, paste’” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=pasty). While the origin of the pasty is not at all clear, this particular kind of meat pie has become associated with Cornwall.

The story we got about Cornish pasties was that they were made specifically for miners. The big industry in Cornwall was tin mining, going back to the Bronze Age. Cornwall supplied the tin, and some other minerals, for England until the 20^th century. The problem with tin mining is that the miners frequently pick up arsenic as well, particularly on their hands. Now, while arsenic is poisonous, it has to be ingested. But if the miners ate something with their hands, they would ingest some of that arsenic, and that could make the miners sick or even kill them. So the pasty was crimped on the side where the miner could hold it, and then the crimped side was tossed away, the way children toss away the crust of a pizza.

Of course, some scholars who have investigated the history of pasties say that that is an old wives tale, that the pasties were wrapped in paper and eaten by holding the pasty in the paper. Personally, I like the old wives tale and will choose to believe it.

Here is how the wiki describes the ingredients: “The recipe for a Cornish pasty, as defined by its protected status, includes diced or minced beef, onion, potato and swede in rough chunks along with some ‘light peppery’ seasoning. The cut of beef used is generally skirt steak. Swede is sometimes called turnip in Cornwall, but the recipe requires use of actual swede, not turnip. Pasty ingredients are usually seasoned with salt and pepper, depending on individual taste. The use of carrot in a traditional Cornish pasty is frowned upon, though it does appear regularly in recipes. The type of pastry used is not defined, as long as it is golden in colour and will not crack during the cooking or cooling, although modern pasties almost always use a shortcrust pastry” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasty).

If you Google Cornish pasties, you will find lots of different websites offering recipes, though I couldn’t tell you how many of them have recipes that line up with government policy. In any case, the pasties that we had in Cornwall, on both of our visits, were delicious. Furthermore, when my daughter was living in Denver, we found a little shop, the Pasty Republic, that makes and sells Cornish pasties, and they are delicious, too. They also come in a much wider variety than the officially protected recipe. They have vegetarian pasties, they have pasties with carrots, and they even have dessert pasties like the Big Chocolate Chunk pasty.

The image today is a pasty. It was added to Flickr on August 10, 2009, by Jenni Konrad who wrote, “pasties are where i learned that rutabegas don’t suck” (https://www.flickr.com/photos/queen_of_subtle/3807467975). By the way, rutabaga is another name for swede. Of course, it’s not a real pasty because it doesn’t have meat in it, right? But looking at that picture is making me hungry. I could devour a pasty right this minute. This is what voracity feels like.