Panko (pron. and 1978), jalape=?utf-8?Q?=C3=B1o_?=and go-to (desirable)

[Benjamin Barrett]

In Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" tonight (this morning?), I heard two people at different joints in the same episode say "peinko" for "panko." It was in the "Turn On Traditional" episode (http://www.foodnetwork.com/diners-drive-ins-and-dives/turn-on-traditional/index.html).

The OED has Brit. /ˈpaÅ‹kÉ™Ê / , U.S. /ˈpæŋkoÊ /. The AHD site is not working right now and Wiktionary doesn't offer a pronunciation for this word.

FWIW, Barry Popik has this back to 2003 (http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0311B&L=ADS-L&P=R695&I=-3&X=6F3DBF3885E312FCC3&Y). The earliest I see on Google Books is 1978, Quick Frozen Foods, Volume 40, by E.W. Williams Publications (http://ow.ly/jlrET).

This word also has some meta-commentary on the pronunciation for jalapeño. The local (Boston) chef and Fieri differ on the penultimate vowel.

On the episode immediately before, "Unlikely Partners" (http://www.foodnetwork.com/diners-drive-ins-and-dives/unlikely-partners/index.html), a woman in Canada refers to a sandwich as a "go-to sandwich" (she might have said some other noun instead of sandwich, but I think "sandwich" is what she said).

On go-to, the OED says:  That may be consulted or relied upon; frequently chosen, utilized, or sought out in a particular situation. Esp. in go-to guy. The examples include "go-to concept."

Wiktionary (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/go-to) breaks this up a bit, providing two definitions, one of which is "desirable," which seems to be the meaning used by the Canadian.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

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