623: gefilte fish Aug 22, 2016

It may have been a shock to discover that gefilte fish are not found swimming in any body of water: it's made from ground whitefish, carp, and pike. The word is from Yiddish, unsurprising since the dish is that of Ashkenazi Jews. Much like how in English, '-ed' suffix is used to make past tense verbs and participles, German and Yiddish generally use a 'ge-' prefix. 'Filte' means 'to stuff' or more cognitively, 'to fill', so in this way, 'gefilte fish' just means 'filled fish'.