this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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As others mentioned it was rape as "rapeseed". Unfortunate homophone of another word referring to non-consensual sex.
Middle English borrowed the word "rape" (for the seed) straight from Latin, rapum, rapa. The Latin word actually refers to turnips, but they're relatives and their flowers look really similar:
Top is turnip (Latin rapa), bottom is rape. Latin inherited it from Proto-Indo-European *[s]rā́p- "wild cabbage, turnip"; it's a really weird word, that *ā shows it was borrowed into Late PIE from some pre-IE language.
Then the word referring to non-consensual sex was from Norman French "rap" instead. It's ultimately from Latin "rapere" (to seize, capture, rape), in turn inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₁rep- "to snatch".
Isnt that canola?
Canola is rapeseed.
Apparently it's etymology is from 70's from "Canada" +"oleum" (from latin).
So I guess someone just thought to rebrand "rapeseed".
Most rapeseed oil at the time wasn't used for food, too much linoleic(?) acid; canola was rebranding a low-acid cultivar that was more suitable for cooking.
We produce a shitload of the stuff
Oh. Yeah never knew about the cultivar thing. It was before I knew about such things. It's just called rapsiöljy in Finland and there's fields of it. Always used that for cooking, only started using olive oil like last year.
You dont want to cook with olive oil. The smoke point is too low.
Depends on what you're making. You don't want to fry with it, no, but it's excellent for marinara and pasta etc etc
As other users highlighted, canola is a specific cultivar of rapeseed. The name is for Canadian oil, low acidity. It was originally a brand.
Wiktionary also lists "colza", ultimately from Dutch koolzaad (cabbage seed). I never saw it in English, only in Portuguese (and even then it was an "ackshyually" moment).