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CREAM, n. We had to buy cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate) recently, and my beloved pointed out that the “cream” in cream of tartar must have an interesting etymology; it’s not the fatty part of milk, so why is it called “cream”?
My first thought was that perhaps potassium bitartrate crystals, which are a byproduct of winemaking, are the thing that gets on top in the chemical reaction that produces them. This proved too literal, as these crystals, sometimes called “wine diamonds,” are usually found at the bottom or on the insides of containers. But perhaps they’re “cream” in a more metaphorical sense—the best part, the cream of the crop, la crème de la crème. Tartaric acid can be a sign of quality in wine, and cream of tartar, used to make meringues and also in various household cleaning products, is way more valuable that you’d expect a byproduct to be. (This is all speculation on my part, and I don’t mean to suggest that cream of tartar is the best part of wine. Just that the presence of “wine diamonds” is a good sign, hence the positive nomenclature of “cream.” I’ve seen nothing to confirm this hypothesis, so right now it remains a little story I made up for myself.)
Nobody seems to be able to explain the term “cream of tartar,” but I did learn something else cool. Cream of tartar crystals were crucial to the history of chemistry, as Louis Pasteur studied tartrate salts and deduced that the natural tartrate crystals from wine were the mirror image of lab-synthesized tartrates, a finding confirmed a few decades later by Le Bel and van’t Hoff, the chemists who laid the foundations for stereochemistry. I am out of my depth, but basically what they figured out is that molecules are three-dimensional and it matters which way they’re oriented in space.
Also in one of the chemistry articles I read was a reference to cream of tartar in Chaucer:
And that traditional name ‘cream of tartar’ for the purified, white crystals again is something of a mystery. It has been suggested that the name is of Arabic origin, but there is some evidence that the Arabic term was borrowed from European use. It was certainly already widespread in Chaucer’s time, who refers to it (and argol [tartar]) in the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, which refers to ‘Cley maad with hors or mannes heer, and oille of tartre, alum glas, berme, wort, and argoille.’
Wait, oil of tartar? Oil and cream are not the same.
Except maybe they sort of used to be?
“Cream” has a funny history, but it comes to us partly from Late Latin “chrisma,” meaning a holy oil used for anointing people in ceremonies, which we now usually call “chrism.” When Old French got ahold of Latin “chrisma,” it became “chreme” and then “creme,” which is when English adopted it. In the sixteenth century, French distinguished “le chrême” (chrism) from “la crème” (cream), but those nouns are both pronounced [kʁɛm]. That crossed paths with another Latin word people used for the fatty part of milk that sounded similar—the Oxford English Dictionary says “cremor” and the Online Etymology Dictionary says “cramum,” both of uncertain origin. So anyway there’s a cream-oil connection evident here in the history of the word.
That still doesn’t explain why anyone would call cream of tartar—which looks like white powder and has nothing unctuous about it—either a cream or an oil. But some things we just can’t know.
Something it is entirely possible to know: what I’ve read recently in small-r romance.
Wild Rain (m/f, both cis and het, historical) by Beverly Jenkins. This story is set in the Wyoming Territory in the late nineteenth century, and Beverly Jenkins is one of very few writers I’d trust with that setting—she always handles history with such care. I love how she depicts this community of white, Black, and Indigenous people living together—not in harmony, but while there is violence and prejudice, there are also plenty of folks trying to survive and take care of each other. The unconventional heroine of this book is a rancher who lives independently and doesn’t want marriage or children, and miracle of miracles, she gets a happily ever after that doesn’t require changing any of those things. She’s more competent at ranching and living in the harsh conditions of the West than the hero, and he’s a sweetheart who admires her for it. Lovely. Lots of good historical details about Black newspapers, too. Content notes: abuse and sexual exploitation (in a main character’s past), slavery (in a main character’s past), racism, sex.
Also of note, the hero of this book fought in the US Navy during the Civil War and he was in the Battle of Cherbourg, where the USS Kearsarge sank the CSS Alabama, which Édouard Manet painted in 1864. (Ross King writes about this painting in his book The Judgment of Paris, which I read in December 2021.)
The Astronaut and the Star (het m/bi f, both cis, contemporary) by Jen Comfort. An ice-cold, ambitious astronaut needs to prove to her superiors at NASA that she’s a team player in order to get assigned to the first-ever lunar habitat, so she grudgingly agrees to help a sweet, distractible movie star train for his next role as an astronaut. They’re total opposites who are immediately in lust with one another and they have to spend tons of time together, which is a perfect romance premise. Content notes: unsupportive family, main character has been harassed/stalked in the past, kidnapping, sex.
Wherever Is Your Heart (f/f, both cis and lesbian, contemporary, novella) by Anita Kelly. I would read an Anita Kelly book every day if it were possible. This one follows two older butch women, a bartender and a truck driver, who have been quietly pining for each other for years and both finally decide to take a chance during Pride. Tender, sexy, and very romantic. Content notes: parental death from drunk driving (in the past), discussion of alcoholism, sex.
The Midnight Bargain (m/f, both cis and het, fantasy) by CL Polk. Perhaps more properly categorized as fantasy, this novel still has a lovely romance at its core. Raised in a deeply misogynist society somewhat akin to Regency England, where aristocratic young women are forbidden from magic and valued only for their potential to bear magical heirs, Beatrice plans to become a reviled spinster so she can pursue her studies of magic—but then she falls in love. Is marriage worth giving up her dream? The magical spirit characters are wonderful and they did give the whole thing the feel of “Jane Austen but make it Pokémon,” a description Polk included in their acknowledgments. The clothing descriptions are great, too, and Polk has such a knack for inventing words. Content notes: discussion of and off-page infanticide, discussion of and off-page burning women alive, pregnancy.
And in things that are neither Romance nor romance, but still possibly of interest to readers of this newsletter, here is a thoughtful and fascinating Duolingo blog post about Ukrainian and Russian. I especially appreciated these two passages:
How different are Russian and Ukrainian?
Before diving into the facts of these languages, we should take a moment to consider what people mean when they ask this question and what people are actually saying when they answer it. Because sometimes, this question is a very political one. In the course of world history, groups could often justify their right to have an independent nation by proving that they had their own unique language — and so sometimes, people who try to minimize the differences between two languages might be attempting to diminish another country’s nationhood. So be aware that political ideology, rather than linguistic fact, can sometimes shape someone's opinion about how similar or different the languages are.
And in this second passage, the authors answer a question I had been wondering about—why is it that we used to say “the Ukraine” in English, but now we say “Ukraine”?
How grammar can be political
Other linguistic differences might be more subtle. For example, it used to be the norm in English to say "the Ukraine" instead of just "Ukraine," which is what you hear today. This change may seem small, but there is a complex history (and lots of politics!) behind it: using "the" creates the impression that Ukraine is a region, part of some larger whole, like another country. We do this in U.S. English with our regions, like the Midwest (of the U.S.) or the South (of the U.S.). However, in 1991, when Ukraine declared independence from the USSR, the government also stated a preference that “the” not be used in English-language publications. That's why you now see just "Ukraine," to show it is an independent country.
Something analogous happens in Ukrainian and Russian, too. In Russian, there are two words that can mean “in”: в (v) and на (na). The difference between them is, essentially, what words you use them with: you use в for a place that has recognized borders, like a city or a building, and на for territories without borders, like fields and dependent regions. For example, you use в when you’re talking about Russia, the U.S., or England, but use на when talking about the West or the South. Historically, на has been used when saying “in Ukraine” — a preposition use that tacitly implies that Ukraine is not a country of its own. In recent times, however, there has been a push to use в with Ukraine, instead of на; subsequently, which preposition a speaker uses has become a sign of their political sympathies, with Russians who have sympathies towards Ukraine deliberately using в and those who minimize Ukraine’s right to statehood using на.
So English speakers can indicate whether they see Ukraine as an independent nation by saying “Ukraine” instead of “the Ukraine,” and Russian speakers can do the same with their choice of preposition. Language is so cool.
The blog post also has some examples of Ukrainians using shibboleths—words or sounds that Russians can’t pronounce, but Ukrainians can—to identify Russians. There’s a previous issue of this newsletter about “shibboleth” in case you want to revisit that word.
That’s all for this newsletter. Enjoy your Sunday!