Parmesan

In yesterday's post, I wrote Parmesan in all lower-case. This is, of course, completely wrong.

Some people think that Parmesan is an Americanization of Parmigiano. Those people are mistaken.

The name Parmesan (literally meaning from Parma, a city in Italy) comes from French. It came from a dialect of Northern Italian, where the word was parmeźan, although the modern Italian word is Parmigiano. But hey, languages can change a bit in 500 years.

So, taking its name from a proper noun, it is a proper noun itself and must be capitalized.

As a former English professional, I'm just mortified to have made this error.