First, let me clarify that my title today has nothing to do with polar cultures who live or have lived in igloos. It's meant only as a reference to how cold it feels in Quincy lately, and how it makes me want to stay inside. Yet the urge to stay connected with nature remains. So, I more or less accomplished that on my cutting board. A box of crackers my daughter gave me for Christmas intrigued me greatly because of the variety of seeds and other identifiable particulate matter visible on the surface of each cracker. They reminded me of those bird feeders that consist of a variety of seeds held together by some sort of edible adhesive - peanut butter, perhaps. Nibbling these very tasty crackers in the warmth of my home made me more conscious of the adaptations of birds that allow them to feast on these bird feeders on extremely cold days.
When it came to slicing mushrooms for our home-made pizza, I suddenly visualized them in their natural habitat rather than in the supermarket. I also thought of them as fungi rather than mushrooms. They are both, of course, but this sort of experience usually launches me into an etymological search. I wondered about the origin of the word mushroom and whether it was a euphemism that helped diners avoid facing the facts about what they were eating - much like we say 'beef' instead of cow, and 'pork' or 'bacon' or 'ham' instead of pig. 'Hamburger' sounds much better than 'ground up cow's leg.' I couldn't find a clear etymology of 'mushroom.' The stories vary and there doesn't seem to be a consensus. Then I wondered about the origin of euphemisms in general. I wondered if they have anything to do with shame or guilt. Could they be a sign of a practice that should be discontinued? Or, if the practice can be justified, then why the euphemism? Again, from Shakespeare, arises the question "What's in a name?" Quite a lot, it seems.
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