Flashed briefly past me, an ad for Jordan almonds for the holidays, which evoked some memories and also led me to check the etymology in NOAD (which gets this stuff from the OED):
noun jordan almond: a high-quality almond of a variety grown chiefly in southeastern Spain. ORIGIN late Middle English: jordan apparently from French or Spanish jardin ‘garden’. [AZ: though other etymologies have been suggested].
These almonds are commonly sugar-coated:
In which case the name is usually spelled Jordan almond. Jordan almonds are often associated in the popular mind with the Jordan River or the country of Jordan.
From my 1/29/15 posting “Comfits”:
From Wikipedia:
Comfits are confectionery consisting of dried fruits, nuts, seeds or spices coated with sugar candy, often through sugar panning. Almond comfits (also known as “sugar almonds” or “Jordan almonds”) in a muslin bag or other decorative container, are a traditional gift at baptism and wedding celebrations in many countries of Europe and the Middle East, a custom which has spread to other countries such as Australia and Puerto Rico. While licorice comfits (also known as torpedoes because of their shape) are multi-coloured, almond comfits are usually white for weddings but may be brightly coloured for other occasions.
Though I didn’t know the word comfit [when I was a child], I certainly did know Jordan almond then, and was fond of them.
And so for my daughter Elizabeth. Many years ago my family occasionally shopped for specialty items in a wonderful Abruzzese market in Columbus OH, now long gone; the child Elizabeth got Jordan almonds as a little present from the grocer.
November 28, 2024 at 3:40 pm |
Have you written about Baker’s Chocolate, and German Chocolate Cake? Actually named for the owner, Mr. Baker, and his employee, Mr. German.
November 28, 2024 at 3:43 pm |
No. But that seems to be so, and that’s fabulous. I’ll assemble some references in a while.
November 29, 2024 at 7:36 am |
I knew the word comfit as a child (although I wasn’t entirely clear on exactly what they were), because of what may still be the only reference to them I have ever encountered: In the chapter of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland covering the “Caucus-race”, Alice distributes the contents of a box of comfits that she happens to be carrying as prizes for the various creatures that participated in the race.
November 29, 2024 at 8:13 am |
Ah, then I certainly had experienced the word as a child, since I loved the Alice books and inadvertently memorized great chunks of the text. Somehow, comfit didn’t stick in my memory.