Spicy

Laurentius

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How would you say this? Went to some Indian (I think) diner today and it crossed my mind that I didn't have a fitting word in Latin. I have found acer, asper and mordax but these seem somewhat lacking.
 

kizolk

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Smith and Hall (via Latinitium) gives:

spicy:
  • 1. ŏdōrātus: cf. Sil. 17, 658, where the epithet is applied to the Indi, because of the spices which abound in the Indies: Tib.
  • 2. condītus, aromatis (odoribus) condītus: v. spice, and to season.
  • 3. ărōmătĭcus (v. rare): in Spart. Hadr. 19, aromatica = spices. (Occasionally used fig.: bene conditus: conditior.)
But they don't seem to convey what you want.

The foods you would usually call "spicy" tend to contain chili peppers, but the Romans probably didn't know them. Pepper is interesting too, from which you get piperātus:

Lewis & Short dixit:
pĭpĕrātus, a, um, adj. [piper], peppered, seasoned with pepper.
  1. I. Lit.:garum piperatum, Petr. 36: acetum, Col. 12, 47, 5.
    1. B. Subst.: pĭpĕrātum, i, n., peppersauce, Cels. 4, 19; Apic. 3, 14.

  2. II. Trop., peppery, pungent:piperata facundia, Sid. Ep. 5, 8; 8, 11.
    1. B. Sharp, thievish: non fuit Autolyci tam piperata manus, Mart. 8, 59, 4.
Then I thought about mustard, whose name comes from mustum... ardens!

Wikipedia dixit:
The Romans were probably the first to experiment with the preparation of mustard as a condiment. They mixed unfermented grape juice (the must) with ground mustard seeds (called sinapis) to make "burning must", mustum ardens—hence "must ard".[6] A recipe for mustard appears in De re coquinaria, the anonymously compiled Roman cookbook from the late fourth or early fifth century; the recipe calls for a mixture of ground mustard, pepper, caraway, lovage, grilled coriander seeds, dill, celery, thyme, oregano, onion, honey, vinegar, fish sauce, and oil, and was intended as a glaze for spit-roasted boar.[7]
PHI didn't find any occurrence of it, and I searched it in the above mentioned cookbook but couldn't find it; not sure when it's been used for the first time.
 

Laurentius

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Thanks a lot! Interesting ideas, and I think piperatus sounds perfect!
 

kizolk

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Only now do I notice something went wrong with the formatting on the "peppery" entry. The forum superimposed an Arabic numeral list, but the original only had the two Roman numerals and the B's.
 

syntaxianus

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I see nothing wrong with the suggestion of acer:

Smith & Hall, s.v., pungent:

ācer, cris, cre (the primary sense of the word): let him avoid p. things, such as mustard, onion, garlick, ut vitet acria, ut est sinapi, cepa, allium, Varr. in Non. 201, 14.
 

Michael Zwingli

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How about "acutus"?
I think so, though. Note Lewis' dictionary entry, under the first figurative sense "Fig., to the senses":


Is not something "sharp" or "pungent" to the sense of taste what we today call "spicy"?

The Romans didn't have most of our modern "spices". Your average American who douses everything in "Frank's Red Hot" sauce probably would think everything in the Roman diet to be exceedingly, unbearably bland. The Latins didn't know Chile peppers of any kind or anything else containing capsaicin, nor any of the spices from the orient. Basically what they had to sex up their food were European herbs. Even so, according to Lewis, if something was "sharp" or "pungent" tasting, like a meaty "ragù" with an excess of basil and oregano (I know, the Romans didn't have spaghetti yet, but bear with me), it was acutus/-a/-um.

EDIT:
To my mind, the problem with acer, asper, and the like, are that they suggest something bad tasting...not "spicy" in a good way, such as something excessively bitter. If you don't like acutus, then you may have to get creative: pungibilis < pungō + -bilis (?)
 
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Clemens

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Although the chili peppers of the Americas were unknown to the Romans, they certainly did know about spices from India and China, such as pepper and long pepper, and cinnamon, and may well have known of others. It has been established that Romans traded wine and garum with India in exchange for spices (among other goods).

The Latin Wikipedia article for Capsicum uses pungēns and acer.
 
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Laurentius

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I think so, though. Note Lewis' dictionary entry, under the first figurative sense "Fig., to the senses":


Is not something "sharp" or "pungent" to the sense of taste what we today call "spicy"?

The Romans didn't have most of our modern "spices". Your average American who douses everything in "Frank's Red Hot" sauce probably would think everything in the Roman diet to be exceedingly, unbearably bland. The Latins didn't know Chile peppers of any kind or anything else containing capsaicin, nor any of the spices from the orient. Basically what they had to sex up their food were European herbs. Even so, according to Lewis, if something was "sharp" or "pungent" tasting, like a meaty "ragù" with an excess of basil and oregano (I know, the Romans didn't have spaghetti yet, but bear with me), it was acutus/-a/-um.

EDIT:
To my mind, the problem with acer, asper, and the like, are that they suggest something bad tasting...not "spicy" in a good way, such as something excessively bitter. If you don't like acutus, then you may have to get creative: pungibilis < pungō + -bilis (?)
These are all very general words that can be used in a huge variety of contexts, I wanted something more intuitive. Also I don't care about Americans.
 
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Clemens

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It has just occurred to me that we don't have an appropriate word in English, either. We usually take spicy to refer to foods with chilis, but it can also refer to other spices, and hot of course has to do double duty.
 

Laurentius

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It has just occurred to me that we don't have an appropriate word in English, either. We usually take spicy to refer to foods with chilis, but it can also refer to other spices, and hot of course has to do double duty.
Exactly, I was really weirded out at first when I needed specific English words for this too.
 

Michael Zwingli

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It has just occurred to me that we don't have an appropriate word in English, either.
Exactly, I was really weirded out at first when I needed specific English words for this too.
I'm not sure what you tasted that "spicy" doesn't adequately describe. If you are with more erudite company, you could say "piquant". In our modern, capitalist world, there are companies...food conglomerates...which have research divisions whose business is to pack as much flavor into a potato chip or candy bar as is chemically possible, with the result that I probably get a "burst of flavor" from my chip that would blow your average first century Roman's mind. Besides that, culinary traditions don't seem (to me) to have played as great a role in Roman culture as they do for modern Italians, so you probably won't find anything at all in Classical Latin to translate "spicy" except for these "reaches". Of course, Vulgar Latin had saporosus, if you like, but that is even more general a term than "spicy". It might certainly be interesting to find out how many adjectives there are in Hindi to describe different kinds of "spiciness".
Also I don't care about Americans.
No surprise there. Frankly, I never imagined that you (or anybody else, for that matter) does. I only made reference because it is that with which I am familiar, and not with the hope of experiencing an 'orgy of interest' (as sexy as that sounds!) Even so, it is somewhat uncivil for you to make mention of it, don't you think?
 
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Clemens

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I'm not sure what you tasted that "spicy" doesn't adequately describe.
As I thought I made clear in my post, in English spicy can refer to something containing capsaicin, and therefore is "spicy" in the sense of piquant or perceived heat, but a dish such as the Saudi kabsa, which is laden with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black lemons, mace, and so on, is also called "spicy" even though it is in no way piquant. Indian chai is also "spicy" without being piquant.
 

Avunculus H

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As I thought I made clear in my post, in English spicy can refer to something containing capsaicin, and therefore is "spicy" in the sense of piquant or perceived heat, but a dish such as the Saudi kabsa, which is laden with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black lemons, mace, and so on, is also called "spicy" even though it is in no way piquant. Indian chai is also "spicy" without being piquant.
Then what I guess best conveys that sense is condītus, which is one of the options in Kizolk's response near the beginning.
 

Michael Zwingli

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As I thought I made clear in my post, in English spicy can refer to something containing capsaicin, and therefore is "spicy" in the sense of piquant or perceived heat, but a dish such as the Saudi kabsa, which is laden with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black lemons, mace, and so on, is also called "spicy" even though it is in no way piquant. Indian chai is also "spicy" without being piquant.
Yes, I understood that, and I agree with you. I think that when the subject is the sense of taste, "spicy" covers all flavors favorably stimulating to the palate which are not either "sweet" or "tangy". My comment that,
I'm not sure what you tasted that "spicy" doesn't adequately describe.
was addressed mostly to Laurentius, whose culinary experience is our subject, after all, and was intended to emphasize that very point, for both of the posts that I quoted in #13 seem to imply that "spicy" is somehow lacking as a general term in English. As for a Latin term, I think that conditus might just be the best equivalent.
 
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Michael Zwingli

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...a dish such as the Saudi kabsa, which is laden with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, black lemons, mace, and so on, is also called "spicy" even though it is in no way piquant.
That sounds super interesting; I would love to try it, but I can't imagine where I might get some. Most of the "Middle Eastern" food around here is the typical Levantine (Lebanese and Syrian) stuff...hommus, baba ghanouj, etc. I'm going to make some inquiries, though.
 
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