ὣς φάθ᾽, ὁ δ᾽ αὖτις ἰὼν κατ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἕζετο: τῷ δὲ συβώτης.
χεῦεν ὕπο χλωρὰς ῥῶπας καὶ κῶας ὕπερθεν:
ἔνθα καθέζετ᾽ ἔπειτα Ὀδυσσῆος φίλος υἱός.
— Homer, The Odyssey, Book 16, ll. 46-48The swineherd, when the quiet man sank down,
built a new pile of evergreens and fleeces —
a couch for the dear son of great Odysseus
— Robert Fitzgerald’s translation
When looking at the title of a recipe for λουκάνικο Φρεσκων τυριων (loukanico freskon turion, “sausage with fresh cheese”) I said to myself, “Oh. Greek ‘Φρεσκως’sure sounds like English ‘fresh’ and Italian “fresco”!”
The words “Fresh” and “Fresco” (the habit of painting on wet plastered walls) in English are what is called a doublet: “Fresh” has been a constant, evolving part of the language going back through Proto-Germanic *friska to Indo-European *preyskos. There are versions of “Fresh” all over the Germanic world, from Icelandic frískur to Estonian priske to Afrikaans fris. And through Proto-Balto-Slavic, “fresh” has its various and beautiful forms from Lithuania to the Balkans to the tip of Kamchatka.
Weirdly, Indo-European “fresh” was abandoned by Italic languages (or a common ancestor) leaving the Roman’s with no word with exactly the connotation of “fresh” or “fresco”. Go ahead: check your Collins Pocket Latin Dictionary. Thus, while the Italic languages long languished unfresh, English has come to have two words for Fresh! And strangely, “Fresco” in English is a fairly fresh borrowing back from, of all places, Italian.
How can this be?
Well, Italian fresco has evolved from a Medieval Latin word which was borrowed from Frankish, a Germanic language — which to their Gallic horror, gave the French the names of both their country and their language. And, to make matters worse, the French owe their Gallic adjective ultimately to the Celts, although it was some more of those Germanic types who loaned the words to the Romans. As it seems the French have little linguistic originality, perhaps we may grant them that they make fine cheese.
So, imagine a Medieval Latin-speaking fellow on holiday in the South of Gaul, sitting in a Frankish tavern with his Frankish friend and remarking (in Medieval Latin): “My! The boiled leeks that came with my wild boar are really . . . I don’t quite know how to put it . . . and this cheese!” (Meam! Aliacocta porro quae cum apro facta sunt vere sunt . . . non satis scio quomodo ponatur . . . et hic caseus!)
And then imagine his Frankish friend shrugging his shoulders and saying “Frisk”.
Latin fellow: “Fresco! Perfect. I like that! Can I use it?”
[Gallic shrug]
But what of Greek “Φρεσκως”? Is it a borrowing from Latin/Italian or a word retained from Indo-European? None of my Homeric dictionaries nor my abridged Liddel and Scott have an entry for anything resembling “Φρεσκως”. Despite much internet rabbit hole searching, I’ve been unable to find anything that definitively says Ancient Greeks did or didn’t say “fresh”. I did, however, find some old English-Ancient Greek dictionaries that gave all sorts of other words as translations of “Fresh”, different words for different contexts, like words for “green”, or “new”, or “young”. So, I’m leaning toward the conclusion that Homer never enjoyed anything much fresh. But he probably had lots of things that were χλωρός, particularly grass in springtime and certain new, young cheeses. By moonlight over the water.
Postscript: If you are interested in the sausage recipe that set off this whole exploration, go here and follow the link to “Fresh (Raw) Sausages” and scroll down to “Loukaniko-Cheese 2”.
Behind the Hedge 