Small pellets of noodle dough, often toasted, used in Jewish cooking especially during Passover as a substitute for regular pasta.
From Yiddish 'farfel,' possibly meaning 'crumbled' or 'broken,' derived from Middle High German. The word entered English via Yiddish-speaking Jewish communities in America and Europe.
Farfel is a textbook example of how diaspora cuisines preserve tiny food words—you won't find 'farfel' in most English dictionaries, but any Jewish grandmother knows exactly what you mean, showing language lives in communities, not just books.
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