What do biscotti and macaroni have in common?

‘Only one biscotto!’ exclaimed my husband, grabbing a little packet labelled ‘Biscotti’ at the station coffee stall. It fell from his agitated fingers and broke into two. ‘There you are, darling, two biscotti,’ I said cheerfully, to his annoyance. But singulars and plurals for foodstuffs are seldom simple. Take macaroni. It is an obsolete form of maccheroni in Italian, ‘tubular pasta’. But Italians hardly think of talking of one maccherone. It’s a funny word anyway. An origin is seriously proposed in the Greek makarios, ‘blessed’, and aionios, ‘eternal’, which together named a funeral chant. I suppose macaroni was consumed after the funeral, as we do ham sandwiches.

In the Spectator (no relation) of 24 April 1711, Joseph Addison wrote about maccaronies as ‘circumforaneous Wits whom every Nation calls by the Name of that Dish of Meat which it loves best. In Holland they are termed Pickled Herrings; in France, Jean Pottages; in Italy, Maccaronies; and in Great Britain, Jack Puddings’.