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Word of the Week (210): GYOZA (probability 9865), by David Sutton

A GYOZA is a kind of Japanese dumpling, served fried.

I am not myself versed in the mysteries of the culinary art, but I understand that the basic ingredients of dumplings, at least in their British incarnation, are suet and flour. My mother used to serve them in a stew, and very satisfyingly calorific they were after a morning of roaming the fields.

It is good to know that children across the world continue to be provided with this kind of sustenance. The Chinese have their WONTON, a spicy dumpling containing minced pork, served especially with soup. The Italians have GNOCCHI, small dumplings made from flour, semolina or potatoes. This is plural, so no -S. The French QUENELLE is a poached meat dumpling.

Jewish cuisine offers us the KNAIDEL (plural KNEIDLACH or KNAIDLACH) or KNEIDEL (plural KNEIDELS); also KREPLACH or KREPLECH, small dough dumplings served in soup (these are plural so no -S), and the SPATZLE or SPAETZLE, which is also a small dumpling; these do take -S.

The PEROGI (plural PEROGIES) is a traditional Polish dish, a semicircular filled dumpling. It has variants PIEROGI (plural PIEROGIES) and PIROGI (plural PIROGIES). The lexical situation here is somewhat confused by the existence of the PIROG, a large Russian pie, stuffed with meat, fish, eggs, or cabbage, which has plurals PIROGI, PIROGHI and PIROGEN.

A DOUGHBOY is a boiled flour dumpling eaten in the US, though it can also mean a US infantryman. And finally we have the Scots CLOOTIE dumpling, which I really like the sound of: a suet pudding, containing currants, raisins, etc, steamed or boiled in a cloth. Note that CLOOTIE, being as far as the lexicon goes found only in this phrase, does not take -S.

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