Talk:Lox

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I don't see anything in the store labeled "lox." Our synagogue usually serves nova smoked salmon. My family always called nova smoked salmon "lox" but where do you get the brine-cured real thing?

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…Why should they be together with Swedish food?? No, Lox can not be merged within the same article as smoked salmon etc. Do not include religious food with Scandinavian food, because in scandinavia, we do not care.I am strictly against.==Merging Lox with Smoked Salmon== I've proposed a merger of Lox and Smoked Salmon, as I'm almost positive they are the same thing. Please leave comments for/against, and I will check back in a few weeks to see what people think about this. Nemilar 05:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Why merge it with smoked salmon rather than gravlax? I think it's ok for this to stand on its own. --D. Webb 20:06, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Stand on their own: the variations of Lox and Nova are, for my own linguistic useage and understanding, salt cured or cold smoked [with or without sugars or splices, as distinguished from "smoked salmon" which I always think of as smoked or cooked either at low temps [200-250 Farenheit] or higher temps for brief times, and where the temperature is raised to cook the flesh. But this variation [lox vs. smoked salmon] is not definitive all over. Still, given the historical distinctions [for which the Wiki encyclopedia is well situated...], arising from linguistic or cultural derivations, I would leave available multiple article titles, with liberal cross referencing. Similarly, the cooking similarities and explanations would be best replicated in a cooking wiki in a single article, with articles titles covering the various forms all pointing to that same article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JohnRuskin (talk • contribs) 01:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC).

They should both stand on their own. They are not related other than they both incorporate salmon. It's like suggesting that the Cheddar cheese and Mozzarella articles should merge because they both use cow's milk. --Walter Görlitz 06:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 Liquid Oxygen 2 The Name 3 Added an image 4 Is this a US-specific name? 5 Merge with Smoked salmon? 6 Film Reference

[edit] Liquid Oxygen

Liquid Oxygen is also referred to as "lox" (as I discovered when I worked at Grumman Aerospace and I saw an accident report that there was a lox leak somewhere. 69.228.240.57 03:58, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Name

I have some trouble with the phrasing "Variations on the name are lox (Yiddish), lax (Swedish), laks (Norwegian and Danish) and lachs (German)." Actually, these are the same word that has evolved differently in different Germanic Languages, i.e. true cognates. As the meaning is phrased now, it sounds like German has borrowed the word from Yiddish, when it in fact is a several thousands of years old word for salmon. By the way, Old English had "læx".

You're right, they're cognates and ultimately derived from old norse. --D. Webb 20:09, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Added an image

hope nobody minds--Sir.Salmon Fish^{The First} 14:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is this a US-specific name?

I'm British and have never heard smoked salmon called "lox" - it's just "smoked salmon" over here. Where else is this term used? 143.252.80.110 14:53, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

As the article says, it's a yiddish word. So you're more likely to hear it in places with a large jewish community. --BluePlatypus 15:31, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Ashkenazic Jews and the Sussman family in particular. yonkeltron 11:52, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Smoked salmon?

Shouldn't this article be merged with "smoked salmon"? They seem to be talking about essentially the same thing. SigPig 23:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Is lox different from smoked salmon? I was confused about this, and came to wikipedia for some answers, but the difference between lox and smoked salmon is not specifically explained. It seems to have something to do with the brining process, perhaps. Someone please clarify. 209.217.66.110 02:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I think lox is either smoked salmon or gravlax. In the scandinavian languages, however, (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Icelandic), lax (from where the word lox is derived) simply means salmon, no matter whether it is smoked or grilled or still alive. --D. Webb 03:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Lox and smoked salmon are seperate things. True Lox is salt cured and not smoked.

You mean gravlax. --D. Webb 20:02, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

If there is to be a merger it should be under the title of "Smoked Salmon". Living in Scotland, and having worked for a time in the production of this foodstuff, I have never heard of the term "Lox" used for the smoked product. I have however, heard (and made) Gravadlax. I think also that the suggestion that this word came into English from the Yiddish is misleading, considering that the Middle English had the term "leax, læx &c." for salmon which was found latterly as "lax" chiefly in North-east Doric of Scotland from the 14c. to the 19c. (taken from Chambers Concise Scots Dictionary). I would conversely suggest that the word came from the cognate germanic languages into yiddish as a loan word. This is also English wikipedia and I would further suggest that this article should have the correct and most common English name for the product. Brendandh 22:24, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Yiddish is a Germanic language, so Yiddish did not take on most of its Germanic lexical elements as "loan words," but developed them from its very origins.

While this is not Yiddish Wikipedia, lox is an English word (note its characteristically English spelling) although it was borrowed from Yiddish. —Hanina

The word "lox" is Yiddish in origin, and connotes not specifically a smoked salmon product, but rather specifically a brined product, smoked or unsmoked, that is prepared according to traditional Jewish specifications (i.e. no bones, etc.) According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word's etymology can be traced thusly: Yiddish laks, from Middle High German lahs, salmon, from Old High German. That the word was and is extant in modern English language can be seen in one of Beverly Cleary's "Ramona books" (I don't recall which specific one). In this instance, the author very specifically refers to her father being given "lox" as a gift from his parents. I advocate keeping them separate, with due references to each article in the "See Also" section. Though very similar, they are NOT synonymous.

-MojoXN@gmail.com

Traditional lox is not smoked, so a merger would be incorrect unless the resulting article is retitled "Cured salmon." It seems doubtful anyone would search for that.

It's also worth noting that lox -- called lox -- is really an American-Jewish food, so English speakers outside the U.S. are unlikely to know about it. And, therefore, the Yiddish etymology is the correct one, no matter how many cognates there are. I cited a reference in the article.

Lox is not specifically Jewish, nor is it particularly American. It is the name for any salmon or salmonid fish species. In its English usage it is usually in its prepared form, either smoked or gravlax. I find it comical that it has a separate article here. It should be linked to both gravlax and smoked salmon in a disambiguation page.Fraxbo 17:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)fraxbo

You can also find another discussion of how the term is often misused here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9505EEDD1738F93AA1575AC0A9649C8B63 Fijagdh 11:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Film Reference

Although Lox is not a word common in the UK, James Bond mentions it in You Only Live Twice when he briefly confuses it with Liquid Oxygen (used by Blofeld's engineers for rocket propulsion). 212.137.45.109 (talk) 12:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC) John N.