Continuing with my new blog addition of ‘Words of the world’, where I take some of my favourite words from different languages and say why, is a wonderful italian word.
Zuppa Inglese
A direct translation would lead you to think that ‘Zuppa Inglese’ may just be a nice warming bowl of fresh soup made in a country house in England. This isn’t really the case…for Zuppa Inglese is custard (or a custard dessert).
The story goes that rich Italian visitors to the Elizabethan court were lucky enough to try the rather british dessert of trifle and, being hugely impressed, asked their chefs back home in Italy to try and replicate it. The result was a fairly trifle-y italian custard dessert and a fantastic edition to the dictionary of a language already filled with fabulous sounding words.
And on a side note, before posting this I almost fell into the embarrasing trap of typing ‘desert’ instead of ‘dessert’. Although i’m sure a custard desert would be interesting, I won’t be going there any time soon.
Skip to content