The Etymology of Caramel
Caramel's etymology is genuinely disputed. The two leading candidates both lead back to sugar cane: one camp derives it from Late Latin calamellus, a diminutive of calamus (reed, stalk), since cane sugar was once called reed-honey; the other prefers Medieval Latin cannamella, literally cane-honey, from canna (reed) + mella (honey). A minority view proposes Arabic kora-mu'hella (ball of sweet) via Spanish, but most lexicographers find the Latin route more probable. Whichever path is correct, the word reached English in the 1720s through French, when the technique of cooking sugar to a deep amber was a fashionable new culinary art. Caramel as a colour name appeared in 1854; the salted caramel craze, a 1977 invention by the French confectioner Henri Le Roux of Quiberon, has only conquered global menus in the last twenty years.