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jerky (JUR-kee) - n., lean meat cured and preserved by cutting into thin strips and air-drying in the sun.
Often seasoned to some extent as well, which helps with the preserving. One of my go-to snacks, and no nothing to do with jerking the meat around to stretch it out. Alteration of earlier form (which I'd never met) charqui, from Latin American Spanish charqui, from Quechua ch'arki, salty meat dried in the sun. I'd always assumed this was from a Taíno language of the Caribbean [Sidebar: stick a pin in that language family], thanks to Jamaican jerk, but nope -- Jamaican patois got the term from the same Spanish word. There is a Jamaican influence at work, though, as the English respelling of charqui to jerky was to match that sound change.
---L.
Often seasoned to some extent as well, which helps with the preserving. One of my go-to snacks, and no nothing to do with jerking the meat around to stretch it out. Alteration of earlier form (which I'd never met) charqui, from Latin American Spanish charqui, from Quechua ch'arki, salty meat dried in the sun. I'd always assumed this was from a Taíno language of the Caribbean [Sidebar: stick a pin in that language family], thanks to Jamaican jerk, but nope -- Jamaican patois got the term from the same Spanish word. There is a Jamaican influence at work, though, as the English respelling of charqui to jerky was to match that sound change.
---L.
