Talk:Waterzooi

french terms
people are incorrectly inserting french translations into this article. The dish is not from a bilingual area nor is it from a french speaking area, it comes from a small dutch speaking region. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hurkummer (talk • contribs) 18:03, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

WP Food assessment
I rated this article as a mid importance stub. A classic dish found in Belgian cuisine. --Jeremy ( Blah blah... ) 03:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Personal experience
I happen to be born in Ghent, though I have lived in Canada for the last 37 years. I have been back several times, last two years ago, and have never heard of waterzooi made with anything but chicken. Maybe now there also exists a fish version, a more recent concoction, but I have not tried it. For that matter, I do not like the chicken platter either.

Recently, in a travel article, I saw waterzooi (again, stressing the fish variety, though it was also mentioned there was a possibility of making it with chicken) referred to as a "peasant" dish. Between the 13th and 15th centuries, Ghent was a walled city with over 65,000 inhabitants, almost as big as Paris then, but much bigger than London or Hamburg at the time. The city got its richness from the textiles that were made there, and exported throughout the rest of Europe. Hardly peasants.

The "tarbot" (turbot) variety would not be called so if it were made with anything but turbot itself. It might be called a "vis" (fish) meal, but if it included eel (paling), that would certainly be mentioned, "paling in het groen" (eel with herbs) being another Ghents specialty. I suspect it is a misreading of the word "Rabot", which was a toll house where barges coming into the city with their wares (including fishmongers) would pay a toll to be let in. The word now describes an area of the city bordering on that toll house. The fish variety may have originated there, and named for that area. Alfred Van Peteghem. 74.13.204.22 17:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Translation of "Zooi"
I'm not Dutch, or Flemish, but have been living in Holland for 12 years, and I have never heard the word "zooi" used to mean "boil".

"Zooi" means "mess, chaos, junk, debris or trash", which, culinarily speaking, is essentially what a stew-like soup is. Every culture has its "garbage soup", and these are often given modest or "cute" names to simultaneously refer to and disguise the fact that their ingredients are less than refined. Using various fish, fish parts, eels and any vegetables (fresh or not) as any peasant might have at hand, and boiling them together — making more from less — is no exception, though, with typical Dutch/Flemish directness, calling this dish "waterzooi" or "viszooi" makes little attempt to disguise its humble origin.

I suspect the author was either politely misinformed as to the translation, or else it is a passed-down pleasantry. While "boil" could be used as a stand-in for "chaos" or "jumble", with the roiling motion this infers, I think this is a stretch beyond the reasonable, done to make it sound more palatable.

miltonBradley 16:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually zooien, or better zoden is the (strong) past tense of an old verb zieden (cognate to seeth) that means "to boil for a long time". Zoutzieden e.g. is to produce salt by boiling a solution of brine to dryness. And yes if you boil food for a long time you do tend to get a zooi (a mess that is). Jcwf (talk) 22:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)