| I am in Jerusalem, where the weather is cool, and the fall rains have just begun. After a thunderstorm one day, I saw this snail making his way very slowly across the sidewalk. I asked someone how to say “snail” in Hebrew and found that the term is שבלול shablul. (The word first occurs in the Bible in Psalm 58.) And then later the same day I discovered that pastries like cinnamon rolls are also called shablulim because they are shaped a bit like snail shells. It turns out that the idea of naming pastries after snails did not originate in Hebrew. In German snails are called Schnecken, and that word is also used for sweet rolls. So this is undoubtedly the source of the usage in Hebrew. So now you know. |
| Created on 5 November 2022 by Samuel Ethan Fox |