[Ads-l] antedating guacamole [also chopsticks]

[Barretts Mail]

Only tangential, but Luke Fater just published an article on William Dampier and his book "A New Voyage Around [sic” Round] the World” on Atlas Obscura, and it includes mention of Dampier’s first description of guacamole but without a name:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-food-writer <https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/first-food-writer>

Dampier names the avocado fruit the “avocado-pear”.

Among the first descriptions by Dampier are chopsticks, the OED entry for which is outdated. 

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The two small sticks or slips of bone, wood, ivory, or the like, held between the thumb and fingers of one hand by the Chinese in place of a fork for conveying food to the mouth.
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Endymion Wilkinson, in his "Chinese History: A New Manual (fourth edition)”, gives the Spring and Autumn period as the apparent earliest use of eating chopsticks (as opposed to the preceding tongs and cooking chopsticks), but the description of Chinese people using them in place of a fork does not seem appropriate or entirely accurate. 

Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
Formerly of Seattle, WA

> On 29 Jul 2019, at 12:50, Bill Mullins <amcombill at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> The cite below is quoted from the New Orleans paper. I originally searched it for "guacamole", and did not find it (in Genealogybank), but just today looked for "alligator pear" and was able to locate it (slightly antedating the previous cite).  The quote is exact, so the verbiage is the same, but the citation details are as follows:
> 
> 
> New Orleans LA  _Daily Picayune_ 9 Aug 1891, p 13 col 4
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Bill Mullins
> Sent: Friday, July 26, 2019 12:03 AM
> To: ads-l at listserv.uga.edu <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>; OED.UK at oup.com <OED.UK at oup.com>
> Subject: antdating guacamole
> 
> OED has 1920 for guacamole.  Barry Popik has 1894.
> 
> _Springfield [VT] Reporter_ 25 Sep 1891 p 2 col 3.
> 
> "The famous aguacate, known here as the alligator pear, is really no fruit, but a vegetable, eatable only as a salad "guacamole," and of the daintiest. . . New Orleans Picayune"


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