Omelettes cannot be made without breaking eggs.
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That is an old French proverb that means something like you cannot achieve something worthwhile without sacrificing something that is in itself valuable.
Did you know omelettes were named after thin plates?
A long time ago, let’s say a few hundred years, the word we now know as omelette resembled a thin plate.
Only it wasn’t spelt omelette then.
The Latin word for a small plate, so I am told, was something like lamina, vastly different from omelette.
I often wonder if omelette, the word we now know, was the result of a series of blunders. But who am I to say?
The spelling undertook many changes over the years, including lemelle (blade of a knife), lamelle, alumette, alamette and eventually omelette.
The influence of early Romans and French played its part in the changes of spelling. And, remember, spelling was not so standardised in those days.
These days an omelette is made from eggs whipped up and supplemented by various extras such as cheese, apples, parsley, chopped ham, fish and mushrooms and so on.
Don’t you have all the extras?
Well, I suppose you can have an omelette just with eggs, but the extras make it so much tastier.
The first reference in print that I could find came in 1611, when I found an omelette described as “a pancake of eggs”.
In 1655 the Comical History of Francion commented that a person had been commanded to make an aumelet, ”it being Friday”.
I don‘t know what Friday had to do with it. Maybe they thought the eggs came from fish.
They actually had omelette frying pans. Maybe they still do. I found “a small omelette ferrying pan is necessary for cooking it well”.
My wife says I need a map to find the laundry, so don’t make me to be an expert.
Somebody has even made an omelette with strawberries. In 1958 I found a recipe of an omelette with strawberries described as “en surprise”, so maybe it wasn’t such a success.
Even people can be omeletted, if the Westminster Gazette can be taken as a guide, when it reported a person as saying “I don’t want to be omeletted”.
The Americans spell the word omelet - which seems to make sense – but elsewhere it is spelt omelette.
You could always find another word for omelette. I found about 100 words, but they were in different languages.
Anyway, what’s wrong with omelette?
I suppose you could put in different fillings and call it something else, but I don’t think it will catch on.