English

Alternative forms

• saloup

Noun

saloop ‎(usually uncountable, plural saloops)

1. salep.
2. (dated) An aromatic drink originally prepared from salep, and later from sassafras bark and other ingredients such as milk and sugar, once popular in London, England.
   • 1835, London Medical and Surgical Journal, Volume 7, page 703,

     In simple ordinary diarrhœa, a mixture is prescribed, consisting of two ounces of a decoction of mallow and saloop, and two drops of Sydenham's laudanum.

   • 2003, Antony Clayton, London's Coffee Houses: A Stimulating Story, page 31,

     As an alternative to coffee — in periods such as the beginning of the eighteenth century, when it became expensive — a patron might request saloop.

   • 2004, Tim Fulford, Debbie Lee, Peter J. Kitson, Literature, Science and Exploration in the Romantic Era: Bodies of Knowledge, page 261,

     He^{[Charles Lamb]} reveals some of their tastes - their likes and dislikes, their humour. And, characteristically, he does so in a digression, that turns out not to be a digression at all, about saloop, a drink made from 'the sweet wood yclept sassafras' and sold at roadside stalls throughout London.

   • 2014 April 5, “Quite interesting: A quietly intriguing column from the brains behind QI, the BBC quiz show. This week; QI orchids you not”, in The Daily Telegraph (Weekend), page W22:

     The tubers of one [orchid] species, Orchis mascula, produce a flour called salep, which was made into a drink known as "saloop" in 18th-century London, as an alternative to coffee (Charles Lamb thought it the ideal breakfast for chimney sweeps). Salep is a Turkish word with an even more precise derivation (it's from the Arabic for "fox's testicles"). Despite this, the Turks still use it to make a strange elastic ice cream, eaten with a knife and fork, which carries a pungent aftertaste compared by one commentator to the scent of "goats on a rainy day". Salep ice cream is so popular that O. mascula is now a protected species in Turkey.

Derived terms

• saloop bush

Related terms

• salep