A recent question on this site motivates me to ask if our Yiddish "eingemachts" has currency in any German dialect or regional variant?
asked Nov 18, 2011 at 19:30
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2 Answers
Indeed there is "Eingemachtes" in contemporary German.
Duden defines "Eingemachtes" as follows:
(in Gläsern, Dosen u. Ä. aufbewahrte) durch Einmachen, Einlegen (2) in eine Lake o. Ä. haltbar gemachte Lebensmittel (besonders Obst).
Food being stored in jars, preserved by brine or another liquid conservative (esp. fruits).
Today this term usually refers to stewed fruit, or vegetables (e.g. cucumbers, beans, peas etc.) and is not used for jam or marmelade. Also related are the verbs "einmachen", or "einwecken".
Interestingly the German word "Konfitüre" for jam is a direct loan word from French "confiture", which again translates to German "Eingemachtes". In addition the Swabian term "Gsälz" for jam is directly related to "Eingemachtes" as literally it means conserving something using salt ("Gesalzenes").
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Nice. I'm understanding that German distinguishes between the fruitier jam (marmelade) vs the vegetable preserve (eingemachtes.) My sense of the Yiddish is that we use one word for both, but I'm most familiar with it in the sweet sense, as in the phrase "a Gläesel Tee mit Eingemachts”. Commented Nov 18, 2011 at 21:18
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In ancient times Eingemachtes may have been use for jam, but I found no reference. Not even Grimm lists it in this context. I am curious if we get another answer to shed some light into this.– TakkatCommented Nov 18, 2011 at 21:43
"Es geht ans Eingemachte" also means that "it's getting serious now", in the sense of "using the last reserves" / scraping the barrel".
