Carcamusas for the Carcas ('Old Fogeys') and the Musas ('Muses')?

The History of the Name of Toledan Dish

Abstract

This paper addresses the history and etymology of the word carcamusa(s), which currently refers to a dish from Toledo. The objectives of this paper are, on the one hand, to verify the plausibility of the proposed etymologies and, on the other hand, to trace the historical use of the word in Spanish (first documented uses of the word, meanings and etymology). To this end, we have searched for possible variants of the word carcamusas in historical corpora and digital repositories. The most widespread etymology is that it is a compound of carca + musa(s). This hypothesis seems to be a popular etymology and is not accepted by everyone. Another etymology, recently disseminated on some websites and in prestigious publications, relates the word to the Hebrew car-camush, supposedly ‘wrinkled meat’, of Romance or Hebrew origin. This proposal lacks any documentary basis to support it and can be dismissed. However, a review of digital corpora and repositories sheds more light on the possible history of the word. From 1805 and throughout the 19th century, there are documented cases of carcamusa whose uses resemble those of cancamusa described by the DEA and the DLE. In the 20th century, it is not documented again until 1984, referring to the Toledo dish. Although the uses of carcamusa in the 19th century appear to be unrelated to its current use, it is strange that there are two such peculiar homonymous words with no relation to each other. Although it is not entirely clear, it is most likely that, directly or indirectly, the word carcamusa(s), used to refer to the dish from Toledo, comes from the nineteenth-century uses of carcamusa, which is, in turn, a variant of the noun cancamusa.