Haleivi, as I am sure you know, the baalei tosafos lived in many different places, including Languedoc, right next to the Iberian peninsula. They also lived in the generations following Rashi. Rashi lived in the Rhineland in northern Europe. What was perhaps familiar to them would not necessarily have been available to him. It is no discredit to Rashi – and in fact, to this day food is often named in descriptive terms that are not precise. A simple example from the present day is Israeli couscous, which is not actually couscous, but rather a very small pellet of pasta made from semolina flour. Yet it has become known as Israeli couscous all over the world. another, older example is the word Maize, which comes from Taino via Spanish and means American corn, but is applied to other grains which are not quite the same. It is and has been common practice for a long time to name foods this way.
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