Word of the Day
racahout
Racahout
Arabic
French/ʁa.ka.u/English/ˈræk.ə.haʊt/
“A powdered Algerian drink that Victorian England called a cure for everything.”
Racahout was a preparation of acorn flour, potato starch, cocoa, rice flour, and sugar, mixed with vanilla and designed to be dissolved in hot milk. French chemists and pharmacists encountered it in Algeria after France invaded in 1830 and saw in it something Europeans wanted: a mild, nourishing, easily digestible drink for invalids and children. By 1845, Paris druggists were selling it under the name racahout des Arabes, meaning racahout of the Arabs.
3 stops · from Algiers, Algeria to London, England