Hottentot bread
- noun
- NSFW
:
pan hottentote
- Local people would dig up Hottentot bread for its starchy, nutritious root.
Examples
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Traditional recipes sometimes include the cooked root of Hottentot bread.
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Foraging for Hottentot bread is a traditional practice among some tribes in southern Africa.
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Botanists have studied how Hottentot bread survives in arid environments.
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I tried Hottentot bread for the first time yesterday.
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Have you ever tasted Hottentot bread?
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The local cuisine features Hottentot bread, which is often served with meat dishes.
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Many people enjoy the unique flavor of Hottentot bread when it is roasted and seasoned.
Synonyms
A large root that people eat and that grows in southern Africa
A South African climbing plant with a large woody base that looks like a turtle shell
A South African vine with a very large underground tuber
Surface Forms
Morphology
The element 'bread' clearly signals an edible item and 'Hottentot' indicates an association with the Khoikhoi people, so a B1 learner would likely infer this is a food linked to that group. However the specific sense — the thick rootstock of the elephant's-foot plant — is not predictable from the constituents, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Hottentot bread comes from an old name, Hottentot, for local people who dug up and ate the plant's thick, starchy root. Because the root was eaten like bread, people began to call the edible root 'Hottentot bread'.
