noyau

In the cafe section of City Books, a gentleman was holding forth on contemporary poetic society to a small audience. I came in late, but he had strong opinions of some sort about Billy Collins. Now, he was using the word "noyau, n-o-y-a-u, a French word, the French always have a word" to mean a claque or a cabal -- of which he named names: "who's that poet of yours in San Francisco... yes, Foo Bar" -- which I think was suppressing poets he liked. I was tempted to pop in and ask "noyau, noyau, I vaguely recall that as being nougat, could you tell me more about this usage?"

Turns out it's originally from the Latin nux. It meant "a liqueur made of brandy flavoured with the kernels of certain fruits" (those being peach and apricot), and, yes, "a type of sweetmeat related to nougat" (the old almond-centric kind of nougat), and in transferred ethological use "a nucleus (of people)".

(no subject)

Besides, your forte is not invention. It is judgement, particularly shown in your choice of dishes. We seem in that instance born under one star. I like you for liking hare. I esteem you for disrelishing minced veal. Liking is too cold a word -- I love you for your noble attachment to the fat unctuous juices of deer's flesh & the green unspeakable of turtle. I honour you for your endeavours to esteem and approve of my favorite, which I ventured to recommend to you as a substitute for hare, bullock's heart, and I am not offended that you cannote taste it with my palate. A true son of Epicurus should reserve one taste peculiar to himself. For a long time I kept the secret about the exceeding deliciousness of the marrow of boiled knuckle of veal, till my tongue weakly ran riot in its praises, and now it is prostitute & common.-- But I have made a discovery which I will not impart till my dying scene is over, perhaps it will be my last mouthful in this world: delicious thought, enough to sweeten (or rather make savoury) the hour of death. It is a little square bit about this size [here Lamb sketched a square] in or near the knuckle bone of a fried joint of . . . fat I can't call it nor lean neither altogether, it is that beautiful compound, which Nature must have made in Paradise, Park venison, before she separated the two substances, the dry & the oleaginous, to punish sinful mankind; Adam ate them entire & inseparate, and this little taste of Eden in the knuckle bone of a fried . . . seems the only relique of a Paradisaical state. When I die, an exact description of its topography shall be left in a cupboard with a key, inscribed on which these words, "C. Lamb dying imparts this to C. Chambers as the only worthy depository of such a secret." You'll drop a tear....

-- Letter from Charles Lamb to his schoolfellow Charles Chambers