A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

Recent entries:
“Instead of ‘British Summer Time’ and ‘Greenwich Mean Time’ we should just call them ‘Oven Clock Correct Time’...” (3/28)
“Has anyone here ever drank a pint of tequila? I know it’s a long shot” (3/28)
“A pint of tequila? That’s a long shot” (3/28)
“The U.S. should add three more states. Because 53 is a prime number. Then they can truly be one nation, indivisible” (3/28)
“My love for the truth outweighs my fear of offending you” (3/28)
More new entries...

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z


Entry from September 01, 2009
Grillable

“Grillable” (or “grill-able,” meaning a food that’s able to be heated on a grill) is a word that’s not in many dictionaries. A linguistic book published in 1974 declared: “But in the field of culinary terms, it (”-able”—ed.) is not used. There is no *fryable, *bakable, *grillable.”
 
“Grillable” is cited in print by 1914, but the word didn’t become popular until the 1990s, with the explosion of books about grilling. Meat and fish are popular “grillables.” The word can be used as an adjective (“grillable meats”) or a noun (“grillables”).
   
 
Wiktionary: Grillable
Etymology:
grill +‎ -able
Adjective:
grillable (comparative more grillable, superlative most grillable)
1. Suitable for cooking on a grill.
Hotdogs are grillable.
 
Google Books
The Gourmet’s Guide to London
By Lieut.-Col. Newnham-Davis
New York, NY: Brentano’s
1914
Pg. 93:
At his elbow is a compartment, a big box without a lid, in which are chops, steaks, and all other things grillable, and any man who thinks he is a judge of raw chop or steak, looks over into this box before he finds a seat for himself, and indicates to the cook which particular fragment of (Pg. 94—ed.) red meat he wishes to have prepared according to his liking.
   
Google Books
Saunterings in London, with a few bars’ rest
By Leopold Wagner
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin
1928
Pg. 24:
At this decidedly old-world chop house such a thing as a menu card had never been known. For whatever was grillable the customer went straightaway to consult the cook,...
 
Google News Archive
16 July 1956, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA), “Planning to Eat Out-of-Doors?,” pg. 4, col. 1:
Many kinds of meats can be grilled outdoors. The tender beef steaks, slices of canned meat, cold cuts, bacon, Canadian bacon, ham steak lamb chops, franks, and ground beef patties all are quick cooking “grill-able” meats.
 
Google Books
Sunset Barbecue Cook Book
By Carol Johnston
Menlo Park, CA: Lane Publishing COmpany
1967
Pg. 14:
Watch these grillable items carefully since they are cooking top and bottom in a covered unit and therefore cook more quickly.
   
Google Books
Semantic Fields and Lexical Structure
By Adrienne Lehrer
New York, NY: American Elsevier
1974
Pg. 96:
But in the field of culinary terms, it (”-able”—ed.) is not used. There is no *fryable, *bakable, *grillable
 
Google Books
August 1992, Vegetarian Times, “Great Grilling!” by Mary Carroll, pg. 22:
MARRYING A TEXAN brought barbecue into my life in a big way. (...) We’d spend five minutes in the kitchen cutting up vegetables, tofu, tempeh and other grillables.
 
21 May 1997, Hays (KS) Daily News, ‘Fire up the grill!: Several new cookbooks are out just in time for Memorial Day” by Carol Deegan, pg. C2, col. 1:
Schlesinger and Willoughby have added several new, lighter dimensions to their grilling canon, with more grilled vegetables, more seafood, more pasta and more grillable fruit.

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityFood/Drink • Tuesday, September 01, 2009 • Permalink


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.