Sassermaet

Da heritage o maet is a essential pairt o ivvry culture's heritage, an da naem o a dysh is jüst as important. Sassermaet is a delicious tradeetional Shetland dysh. Da wird sassermaet (pronounced /'sasərme̞t/) is a compound maed up wi da elements sasser + maet: sasser (originally meanin 'shappit') comes fae saks 'tae cut, mak inceesions; a inceesion(s) cut(s)' an is a decendant o Aald Norse saxa 'tae shap up, tae cut'; an maet (Eng. 'food') derives fae Aald Norse matr 'food'. Da wird fir maet is still mat athin Norwegian, Swedish an Gutnish, whaaras it's mad in Danish, mæt in Westrobothnian an matur in Icelandic an Faroese. So da wird fir da dysh literally means "shappit maet", an dat's exactly whit it is: beef minced wi fat, rusks an saisonin. Hit's affen reanalysed tae an misspelt as "saucermeat" (an becis o dat it gits mispronounced), but yun entirely misses da point o da dysh an its naem: hit nivver haed onythin tae dø wi saasers, an da siccond bit o it wis nivver da StE "meat" but alwis da Shaetlan wird fir Eng. "food", i.e. maet.

Aald English mete/mæte meant 'maet' as weel an haes da sam ancestor as Aald Norse matr: Proto-Germanic *matiz 'maet'. So da meanin o 'maet' isna Shetland specific, an could, theoretically, derive firbye fae, or be be reinforced by da Scots heritage o Shaetlan. Da meanin o 'maet maed fae fleish' startit shaain up idda decendants o Aald English idda 13C, but da aald meanin is still yunder in Modren English in compounds laek sweatmeat, bakemeat, milkmeat, etc.