But the word “tapas” doesn’t mean small dishes, nor is it related to food at all. “Tapas” is derived from the Spanish word tapar, meaning “to cover,” because people would put pieces ...

The Spanish word was a variation of an Arabic ... The etymology of words, especially food words, is fascinating for what it can tell you about how a food was introduced to English (and American ...

A surprising number of common English food and beverage words have Arabic backgrounds. Spanish absorbed many Arabic words during the centuries that the Moors occupied the Iberian Peninsula ...