WAIE (whatamieating.com)


This is the searchable online international food dictionary with – so far – 61,500 terms in 302 languages (I have just added some Isan) plus 12,690 plurals.

Just type in the word that you're looking for and press enter or click on search. There are other types of search; see search help for more information.

Most Recent Upload: 6th December 2009

The amazing Mariana Kavroulaki has done an amazing job on proof-reading the Greek list, and it is now up to more than 1,500, plus plurals, with 1,470 showing the Greek alphabet rendition as well as the English transliteration.

A few weeks ago I spent an extraordinary couple of days in a food market in Laos, where I photographed huge numbers of foods I had never even glimpsed before. Jungle fruits and insects, furry leaves and vines, roots and tubers, fish artistically arranged alongside chickens (one of the few foodstuffs I recognised!) and the occasional rat. A young woman called Noy, whose other names I do not know, has been working through the images and e-mailing me to identify them for me, giving me the Lao name, and the transliterated name, and a description in English. From these and my other sources, not least the wonderful, but late, Alan Davidson, I have managed to give a formal identification to them. These I am slowly adding. I am having trouble transferring the Lao alphabet terms, but it will happen in due course. Jane is finding a way round this problem for me. As ever!

Please do let us know if you see any errors, broken links or pictures. Some of the changes I am making may lead to this happening and it would help if you could let us know.

Welcome to the new people who have joined the Facebook group. (Facebook group) If you would like to join, you will get occasional updates about what has been added to to the site.

I am mainly working on improvements to the site at the moment. This is a long job and entry of new food terms will happen much more quickly once this structural work is done.

Description: A region of the central west of Spain. Castile was a kingdom of central and nothern Spain and provided Spain with its language, though it was originally a county of the former Kingdom of Léon. These two were united in 1230 and Aragon and Castile were later united by the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469. The tableland region is dry and bare and suffers from droughts and hot winds, separated from the coast by Portugal. It is one of the few regions of Spain to have no local fish, though it can certainly be found. Instead it specialises in the production of wheat, from which exceptionally good bread is made, and in livestock, particularly pigs, and sheep. High quality chorizos are made from the pigs and the sheep provide milk for many cheeses. Castile is the land of the roast and the meaty stew. Rich red wines are produced. Madrid is the capital of Castile, which probably got its name from the number of castles that were built to defend the realm against the Moors. Don Quixote's windmills can still be found there. The cuisine of Léon, centred around the cultural centres of Salamanca and Valladolid, is known for the trout from the rivers and reservoirs of the region. The wooded mountains of the region provide game including chamois, venison and wild boar, while the pastures support beef and port, commony roasted.