Piping Hot 1

[KenCunningham]

Whilst heating up my shop-bought beef stew and dumplings last night I followed the instructions to the letter and very nice it was too. That aside, the final instruction was to the effect that the consumer should ensure that the food was 'piping hot' before serving.

I think we all know what 'piping hot' implies, but it seemed to me a little odd to include what is certainly a subjective term when the preceding instructions had been so precise about exactly what temperature and duration the food should be cooked at/for. I just thought it a nice example of colloquial usage of a term, rather than say, 'test thoroughly with a food thermometer before eating', which in these litigeous days makes a nice change.

 

[2ffat]

I'm surprised that they didn't include the disclaimer, "Caution. Hot Food!"


James P. Cottingham
-----------------------------------------
^{I'm number 1,229!
I'm number 1,229!}

 

[Dollie]

Heat in microwave until thoroughly hot."

Hrm.... 10 minutes should do it.

 

[SkipVought]

_Sssssmmmmmmmmmmmmmm[red]mmokin'![/red]

Skip,

_{[red]Be Advised![/red] For those this winter, caught in Arctic-like calamity, be consoled...
Many are cold, but few are frozen!}

 

[KenCunningham]

Strangely enough, my wife tends to cook that way. When the smoke alarm sounds, it must be ready!

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
I found this on the word detective site:

http://www.word-detective.com/122002.html

Dear Word Detective: Browsing as I do sometimes on the back of the packets of various ready-prepared meals from the local supermarket, I keep seeing the phrase "make sure it is piping hot before serving." I know what "piping hot" means, but I can't find anything in my dictionaries which explains where "piping" in that sense comes from. Can you? -- David, the old York, Yorkshire, England.



Ah, a kindred soul. I, too, like nothing better than to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon browsing the frozen-food labels in our local supermarket. But here in the States our manufacturers march to a different drummer. For fear of lawsuits, they wax positively apoplectic at the thought that a consumer might attempt to consume their product at anything more radiant than room temperature. I have, for instance, been afraid to cook microwave popcorn for years, as the warning labels (Danger! Contents Hotter Than Surface of Sun!) imply that I would risk incinerating family members three rooms away.



Oddly enough, given the litigious atmosphere these days, "piping hot" crops up in TV commercials over here for foods (such as biscuits and pastries) which are shown being removed from the oven accompanied by billowing clouds of steam and the applause of small children. Maybe they're actually small lawyers. In any case, "piping hot" has meant "very hot" since the 14th century, and has almost always been applied to food, although the Oxford English Dictionary does note an 1888 reference to a "piping hot" summer day.



The question, of course, is what all this has to do with pipes, and the first thing to note is that the "pipes" in "piping hot" are not your normal plumbing "pipes." To "pipe" in this sense is to make a sound like musical pipes (think bagpipes), i.e., to emit a whistling or hissing sound. Food served "piping hot" is, thus, hot enough to hiss, sizzle or bubble. The "sizzling fajitas" offered in many US restaurants of the "funky doodads on the wall" persuasion would certainly count as "piping hot," I suppose, although I have never ordered one. As a matter of fact, it finally dawned on me the other day that my persistent refusal to order sizzling fajitas or some other piping-hot delicacy in those places probably accounts for why my food always arrives lukewarm at best. Management just doesn't want me to hurt myself.








To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[KenCunningham]

Thanks for the best laugh today, Turkbear. I love the 'wax positively apoplectic' in that response.

 

[CRilliterate]

Ken,
When the smoke alarm sounds, it must be ready!

Hmm...
When the smoke alarm sounds it IS ready!!! So she is right!

 

[tsdragon]

That description of the origins of "piping hot" seems quite a stretch to me. I just don't believe the association between sizzling and piping. Besides, we already have the expression "sizzling hot". I might have believed an association between piping and a whistling tea kettle.

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.