Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 23:30:16 -0500

From: Dan Goodman dsgood[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VISI.COM

Subject: kimmelweck



On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, Automatic digest processor wrote:



Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 10:07:02 -0400

From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA

Subject: kimmelwick



thanks so much to everyone for the help on "pop goes the weasel".

unfortunately, since making the query, i've had the Damned tune going

through my head day and night. i hope you were not similarly

afflicted.



and now for something completely different...



in the buffalo, new york region, and no where else that i've ever

seen, there is a kind of (bread)roll called a kimmelwick roll. it's

a somewhat crusty sandwich roll with coarse salt on the top which

i've only seen used for hot roast beef sandwiches (very jus-y), which

we call "roast beef on 'wick" (upon which horseradish is the only

approved condiment). the wegman's supermarket chain has now spread

kimmelwicks across western new york, but when i was a kid, we made a

special point on all our visits to niagara falls to get a whole

bunch and take them home to freeze (we lived about an hour and a half

past the kimmelwick line).



can someone tell me:

-is the name german or dutch? (i assume german, b/c my german

grandmother's picnics featured r.b. on wick, but there are a lot

of dutch-descended people in that part of the world too; also, it's

not in my german-english dictionary, nor in my english dictionaries)

-do they have these things in germany/holland? i.e., is it

an imported food or a local invention in the german/dutch community

there? (or something else entirely)

-does anyone from any other region know the name?

-do people from other regions know the food but give it a different

name?



Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 13:57:57 -0400

From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA

Subject: Re: kimmelwick



I have just finished a degree in German, and I am fairly certain that it

is not German, although it could very well be a German dialect-word. I

speak High German, but I cannot understand Bayuvarisch or Alemanisch,

etc. to but a minor extent. Regional foods are often named with dialect.



i got a private msg from joseph salmons saying that "wecken" is a

southern german/austrian word for longish rolls and kuemmel is

caraway. this caused me to remember that (a) it is also

(perhaps "properly") spelt "-weck" (but in my family, at least,

pronounced [wIk]), and (b) there are 2 varieties: the carawayful

ones and the carawayless ones (the latter are the ones i like, so i

blocked the existence of the other--both have the crushed salt).

however, i've never seen one that's oblong--they're always round in

my experience.



nevertheless, this sounds like a pretty likely etymology. could also

be that the far western new york existence of them is linked to a

pennsylvania german influence? i don't know. anyone from

pennsylvania "dutch" country know of them?

Kimmelweck of a kind is now available in the Twin Cities, in a chain

called BW3 which specializes in buffalo wings and other buffalo-area

foods. I suspect that -- as with "New York City pizza" -- something

has been lost in the translation. I've seen "weck" discussed by past

and present Buffalo-area residents on the Usenet group

alt.culture.ny-upstate.



I grew up in the part of New York State where Dutch influence lasted

longest (Catskills/Hudson Valley), and never encountered the term

there.



Dan Goodman

dsgood[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]visi.com

http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html

3010 Hennepin Ave. S. #109, MPLS MN 55408