Word To Use Today: strudel.

Britain may have voted to leave the European Union, but that doesn't mean the British don't love and admire Europe, and Europeans, and European things.

All sorts of European things.

A strudel is a whirl of filled pastry, and is a word nearly as much fun to say as the cake is to eat. The pastry is rolled very thinly - so thinly that it's said that you should be able to read a love letter through it, though the circumstances under which one might attempt to do so are hard to imagine.


Pecan strudel by Janet Hudson

The first recipes we have for strudel have date from 1696 and include the now mystifyingly unpopular turnip strudel. Before that, strudels probably descended from the pastries of Turkey and the Near East.

As if all this deliciousness wasn't enough, the word strudel's derivation is jolly satisfying, too.

Thank you, Europe, for this - and, of course, for many other blessings, too.

Word To Use Today: strudel. This word is German. It comes from the Middle High German strodel, eddy or whirlpool.