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prettygoodwordsapsago - n., a hard green cheese of Swiss origin made from skim cow's milk and flavored with the powdered leaves of Trigonella caerulea.
Some dictionaries claim the flavoring is sweet clover, but as produced in the canton of Glarus, it's a close relation of fenugreek. Pronounced in America as either sap-SEY-goh or SAP-seh-goh, but the actual Swiss-German name is Schabziger -- sapsago being the American Anglicization, dating from the 1840s, when it was imported and sold through pharmacies. Schabziger is from schaben, to grate (because it is usually eaten grated) + Zieger, whey cheese, from Middle High German ziger, probably ultimately from some Celtic root.
ETA: Zieger is the modern High German word, but since Swiss German never underwent the second vowel shift that turned Middle High German to High German, it probably just stayed Ziger, at least in Glarus.
---L.
Some dictionaries claim the flavoring is sweet clover, but as produced in the canton of Glarus, it's a close relation of fenugreek. Pronounced in America as either sap-SEY-goh or SAP-seh-goh, but the actual Swiss-German name is Schabziger -- sapsago being the American Anglicization, dating from the 1840s, when it was imported and sold through pharmacies. Schabziger is from schaben, to grate (because it is usually eaten grated) + Zieger, whey cheese, from Middle High German ziger, probably ultimately from some Celtic root.
ETA: Zieger is the modern High German word, but since Swiss German never underwent the second vowel shift that turned Middle High German to High German, it probably just stayed Ziger, at least in Glarus.
---L.
