Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A relish made of the roes of certain fishes strongly salted after they have become putrid: much used on the coast of the Mediterranean as an incentive to thirst.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A sort of cake or sausage, made of the salted roes of the mullet, much used on the coast of the Mediterranean as an incentive to drink.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A sort of cake or sausage, made of the salted roes of the mullet, much used on the Mediterranean coast as an incentive to drink.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Obsolete Italian, from Arabic baṭāriḫ; see bottarga.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Italian bottarga, bottarica or Spanish botarga; a kind of large sausage, a sort of wide breeches: compare French boutargue.

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Examples

  • W.lliam and I, and it being very hot weather I took my flageolette and played upon the leads in the garden, where Sir W. Pen came out in his shirt into his leads, and there we staid talking and singing, and drinking great drafts of claret, and eating botargo

    Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1661 N.S. Samuel Pepys 1668

  • So home Sir W.lliam and I, and it being very hot weather I took my flageolette and played upon the leads in the garden, where Sir W. Pen came out in his shirt into his leads, and there we staid talking and singing, and drinking great drafts of claret, and eating botargo

    Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 11: June/July/August 1661 Samuel Pepys 1668

  • W.lliam and I, and it being very hot weather I took my flageolette and played upon the leads in the garden, where Sir W. Pen came out in his shirt into his leads, and there we staid talking and singing, and drinking great drafts of claret, and eating botargo

    Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete Samuel Pepys 1668

  • So home Sir W.lliam and I, and it being very hot weather I took my flageolette and played upon the leads in the garden, where Sir W. Pen came out in his shirt into his leads, and there we staid talking and singing, and drinking great drafts of claret, and eating botargo

    The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Jun/Jul/Aug 1661 Pepys, Samuel 1661

Comments

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  • Salted putrid roe. It must taste just delightful.

    December 21, 2010

  • It does. :)

    December 21, 2010

  • December 21, 2010

  • Looks like roejam to me :-(

    December 21, 2010

  • "Greek olives and French capers were imported as appetite stimulants and, by the end of Elizabeth's reign, anchovies were arriving along with botargo, a Mediterranean relish made of grey mullet or tuna roes."

    --Kate Colquhoun, Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking (NY: Bloomsbury, 2007), 94

    January 8, 2017