Chalet, Gruyere Cheese (1801); Tordillas, Chiili (1777)

[Laurence Horn]

At 5:07 AM -0500 3/18/02, Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:
>...
>PINKERTON
>1812
>Volume the Thirteenth
>
>Pg. 753:
>TRAVELS TO GUAXACA*
>By M. NICOLAS JOSEPH THIERY DE MENONVILLE
>*The same with Oaxaca, pronounced "Hooah"-haca.
>(No date is given here, but the travels began in 1777--ed.)
>
>Pg. 794:  These tordillas are cakes made of maize, first boiled in
>water, into which a handful of lime is cast to soften the exterior
>skin; the skin is afterwards washed off, and the peeled maize is
>crusted with a cylindrical stone, by rolling it over a flat one
>eighteen inches long by ten broad; after this first process, it is
>kneaded with the hand, and rounded and flattened to the thickness of
>about four lines; it is then baked on a stone or iron plate, heated
>for the purpose, and turned, that both sides may be properly baked;
>in two minutes the cake is made.  It is always an insipid food, but
>very stomachic, never causes indigestion, and at no time occasioned
>me any inconvenience.

I love "stomachic", which has various earlier and later cites in the
OED (the relevant sense is #3, 'good for the stomach'), but which I'd
never before encountered.  Apparently it's stressed (or was stressed)
on the penult, so it doesn't sound too much like "stomach ache".

larry