Pirogue

A tale from Least Heat Moon’s Blue Highways takes place in Louisiana and references a boat called a pirogue. It seemed a long, long way from the Polish pierogi, but I could imagine a white, doughy boat; the passengers and cargo would be the filling. But “pirogue” is apparently unrelated, and comes from the Spanish “piragua,” which refers to a specific kind of canoe. Although apparently in Puerto Rico "pirogue" refers to a fruit-flavored snow cone.

“Pierogi” is plural; the singular is “pirog” and derives from “pir,” which apparently meant pie. In Ukrainian, a “piroh” is a different sort of pie; the pierogi-like pie is called variniki  (which means “boiled things”). The concept of dough surrounding a filling is almost universal; some other such pies in other cultures include mantu, gyoga, momo, wonton, jiaozi, ravioli, tortellini, kreplach, chuchvara, pelmeni, kalduny . . .