Going gaga over rhythmic chomps

Sometimes, I am sorely tempted to eat something twice. Avarice not wanting, and alliteration withstanding, I have heard dishes beckoning me with an invitation to bite in twice. Have you not?

There is nary an American who can resist chow chow with fish cakes or hot dogs. The word is derived from chou, which is French for cabbage, as well as the Spanish chayote, both of which feature heavily in the popular pickled condiment. South Africans, especially of Portuguese origin, who relish their fiery hot sauce, know that peri peri is interchangeable with pili pili or piri piri, all of which mean pepper pepper in Swahili and Ronga.  

In Hawaii, mahi mahi means strong strong. It is among the fastest growing and the fastest swimmers among all fish, but it is also low in fat and rich in micronutrients, implying that those who eat the fish can become strong.

Well-meaning and welcoming the name may be, but it is not always intensity that drives reduplication (as with Tartar Sauce) and it is not always obvious. In couscous, for instance, it is subtle enough to be unnoticeable. The Arabic word from which it derives, kaskasa, is itself reduplicated, and means pounding. "The word kaskasa may have been formed in imitation of the sound made by a mallet or pestle going up and down," writes Mark Morton, in Cupboard Love: A dictionary of Culinary Curiosities. Morton points out that reduplicated words may also stem from a child’s inclination for favourite things. In the same vein as mama and dada, the French word for sugar candy is bonbon, and din din is an onomatopoeic dinner. Pish pash, a rice soup fed to Indian babies during the British era, is also onomatopoeic, and an extension of the word pish, an archaic word for trivial.

Reduplicated food names are everywhere. While speculoos are world famous, the Dutch make another biscuit during Sinterklaas Day. Taaitaai, which means tough tough, may refer to the chewiness of the dough, but it also pays homage to Saint Nicholas, and is baked in his image. Cocoa is derived from the Mayan word kawkaw, and the mountain papaya of the Andes is called paw paw, although I am not sure why.

Reduplicated food names also have a cousin in the form of flip-flop names, and I am gaga about the whole family. When the second syllable varies slightly, you get hotpot and roly-poly, and Tic Tacs, Jim Jams and Kit Kats. Although it is not eaten, its aromas are redolent of food, and I am laying claim to our own sibling, the hubble bubble.  

- The author's penchant for reduplicated food names propels her to hunt them down, accompanied by shouts of aye aye.