cush-cush

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Related to cush-cush: Cushing's disease, Cushing syndrome

cush-cush

(ko͝osh′ko͝osh′)

n. New Orleans

1. A dish made from fried or boiled cornmeal or crumbled cornbread, typically served sweetened with syrup or in milk.

a. A tropical American yam (Dioscorea trifida) cultivated for its tubers.

b. The tuber of this yam, having a dry and floury consistency when cooked.

[Louisiana French couche-couche, from Caribbean French Creole cousse-couche, couche-couche, dish made of cornmeal, possibly of African origin, perhaps ultimately from Arabic kuskus, couscous; see couscous. Sense 2, from Caribbean English Creole, dish made of shaved cassava or coconut, the yam Dioscorea trifida (the yam being so called because of the dry and fluffy consistency of its cooked tuber ), possibly of African origin, perhaps ultimately from Arabic kuskus.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun

cush-cush - tropical American yam with small yellow edible tubers

Dioscorea trifida

yam plant, yam - any of a number of tropical vines of the genus Dioscorea many having edible tuberous roots

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Besides fried chicken and fish, typical foods ranged from barbecued pork to one-pot dishes with regional names such as "sloosh," "cush-cush," and "gumbo." "Most significantly, however," she writes, "black people developed an affinity for the parts of animals normally discarded by whites: entrails, known as 'chitterlings' (pronounced 'chitlins'); pigs' heads, which were made into 'souse,' a kind of headcheese; [and] pigs' and chickens' feet." One censorious front-page story in the Chicago Defender, an African American newspaper, was simply headlined "Pig Ankle Joints."