There was once a wealthy man, Shakashik, who lost all his money and was forced to beg for help at a great mansion. The owner welcomed him into the house but then began to act a bit strangely: he presented Shakashik with a wonderful feast, praising and describing each dish in detail. At one point he called to his servant: “Serve up the marinated stew with the fatted sand grouse in it,” and he said to Shakashik, “Up and eat, O my guest, for truly thou art hungry and needest food.”
The only thing was that the feast was completely imaginary. There was nothing on the table, not even empty plates. Even though he was mystified about what exactly was going on, Shakashik pretended to keep eating as one imaginary dish after another “arrived.” Then the host offered him some wine, and Shakashik saw an opening. He pretended to drink the wine and pretended to get drunk. Then in his phony drunken state he punched his host in the nose.
The host, though, thought this was great fun, started laughing about his “joke”, and praised Shakashik for playing along. After that he called for a real feast. The two men shared actual food, and got along so well that Shakashik stayed in the mansion for the next twenty years, feasting every night.
That story is the “Barber’s Tale of his Sixth Brother” from “The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night” (better known as “The Arabian Nights”). The slightly odd host’s name was “Barmecide,” and after the book first appeared in English in the early 1700s, “barmecide” entered the language almost immediately, meaning a meal that looks nice but doesn’t turn out to be particularly good.
A barmecidal meal would certainly not appear to be arenaceous, even though it might turn out to taste that way. “Arenaceous” means resembling sand. Surprisingly enough it’s not alone; both “sabulous” and “arenose” also mean about the same thing. It’s not clear why English acquired several words meaning “like sand,” but “arenaceous” comes from the Latin word for sand, “arena.” The English word “arena” comes from the center of the Roman amphitheater where the floor was (you guessed it) sand.
If you do end up confronted with enough barmecidal roasts and burgers that taste arenaceous, you might decide to go vegetarian. But if that’s too big a leap all at once, you might consider “demitarianism” instead. “Demitarian” is a new word, coined in 2009 by Prof Mark Sutton of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. He created the word as part of his efforts to promote lower usage of nitrogen fertilizer, at least in Europe. He reasoned that it might be too much to ask for everyone to give up eating meat entirely, so he suggested a “demitarian” diet — “demi” means half, and a demitarian simply cuts down on meat by 50%. “Demitarianism” has been around for more than a decade now, though, and I’ll bet this is the first you’ve heard of it. “Barmecide” probably had more success back in the day.
