Biccum

Well here's a little something novel for you: supping with a fellow lexicographer recently at a small, rustic clamshack conscientiously unadvertised to the touring throngs of lighthouse peepers, my colleague and I were delighted to make a linguistic discovery. The matron of the establishment, draped all over with laconic New England flesh ensconced within an old and obviously well-loved dress, asked us would we have biccum with our side salads. "Biccum?" we echoed, perplexed. After a sequence of feints, volleys, false surrenders and pincer movements, we managed to extract the word's biography from her.

"Biccum" is a salad dressing or dipping sauce incorporating bonemeal. Evidently originating in Finland (circa 17C), the process was born during an especially brutal winter. The bones of livestock were employed in making a nutrient-rich stock which was then "fined" (a process of thickening catalyzed by dried, minced fish bladder). The finished product made for a healthy and flavorful vegetable dressing.

And how did it taste? Savory yet mild, with a spot of chalk--or so reported my colleague. I am afraid my stomach's lifelong war against sauce curbed my appetite for the delicacy. (It probably didn't help that the matron refused to tell us from which animal the bones had been culled. One thinks, against one's will, of a sort of cannibal roulette: a depraved entertainment ancient Finns nicked from winter's white-feathered coat.)