Eschalot

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small bulb-forming plant of the onion family whose mild, sweet cloves are used as a flavouring in cooking, another name for the shallot
2. An alternative spelling for the shallot, a onion-like vegetable with a delicate flavour that is prized in many savoury dishes
3. The small, clustered bulb of a plant related to the onion, valued by cooks for its subtle, slightly sweet taste in sauces and salads

Etymology: The shallot takes its name from a city. Latin "ascalonia (cēpa)" meant "onion of Ascalon," after the ancient Philistine port of Ascalon on the Mediterranean coast, in what is now Israel. Medieval Latin shortened this to "escalonia," and Old French reshaped it into "eschaloigne," which Middle French later rendered as "eschalote." The English "eschalot" is the older spelling of the same word, borrowed from that French form, and the modern "shallot" is a later refashioning of it. The word is a doublet of "scallion," meaning that the two words descend from the same Latin source but reached English by different routes and took different shapes. Both names point back to the same Mediterranean onion trade, which carried the bulb from the Levant into European kitchens.

Synonyms: shallot