A hearty good day to you, fellow examiners of English, and welcome to another installment of An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents. Today’s episode is for the chefs out there, particularly those who like to prepare a traditional meal, but with a bit of a twist. Today’s word is: spatchcock.

If you happen to have seen season 5 episode 8 of the seminal classic animated television series Bob’s Burgers, you might be familiar with this word, as it is something our titular character tries in his Thanksgiving efforts. ‘Spatchcock’ is a chicken or game bird that is split open and grilled. If one is ‘spatchcocking’, they are placing the chicken or bird face down, cutting away the backbone and discarding it, and then flattening the bird by pressing down on it. You can also purchase a bird that has been pre-spatchocked by the butcher. Spatchcocking is popular because of the overall shorter cooking time, and the quality of taste. 

The word ‘spatchcock’ is likely derived from the word ‘spitchcock’, which means to split an eel along the back and broil it. Similar, no? Sptichcock is probably a corruption of the words ‘split’ and ‘cook’, which makes sense in the context of both spitchcocking and spatchcocking. The word ‘cook’ comes from the Old English cōc meaning ‘a cook’, from the Latin ‘cocus’, and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European ‘*pekʷ-’ meaning ‘to cook; become ripe’. We could also look here at the word ‘cock’, which means ‘male bird’ - and though in spatchcocking one would more likely be cooking a female bird rather than a male, this could point to the origins of the word. An alternative meaning for ‘spatchcock’ is ‘a rushed effort’ or ‘to prepare in haste’, probably derived from the act of spatchocking itself.

Isn’t language wonderful?

Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber

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