2007-03-26 03:04:59 · 9 answers · asked by robscot12001 1 in Food & Drink ➔ Cooking & Recipes
The sense of piping that’s relevant here is the one for making a musical sound, as by playing the pipes. The idea is that a dish that’s piping hot is one so hot it makes a sizzling or hissing noise, perhaps not closely similar to the sound of the pipes, but at least audible. It’s first recorded near the end of the fourteenth century, in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In the Miller’s Tale it says (in modernised spelling): “Wafers piping hot out of the gleed”, where a wafer is a kind of thin cake, baked between wafer-irons, and gleed is the hot coals of a fire.
2007-03-26 03:09:13 · answer #1 · answered by Tom ツ 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
I always thought it was from the old kettles that had a whistle in the spout. You know when the water was ready because the whistle blows with the steam - thus the water is piping hot.
Another possibility is the use of the verb to pipe meaning to utter a shrill cry. If you hop in the bath and the water is too warm, it might be piping hot. "Woohoo!"
2007-03-26 13:05:22 · answer #2 · answered by Mikey_T 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think in the old days the women cooked on wood stoves and they had a chimney from the stove to outside. This pipe exhausting the smoke and hot air became very hot.It warmed the house ,burnt kids hands and whatever. So piping hot means to me a HOT PIPE
2007-03-26 10:17:55 · answer #3 · answered by Eric6453 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Years ago they used to cook things with a pie crust and stuck a form of pipe into the pie to let out the steam. To create steam it needs to be very hot indeed. Hence, piping hot!
2007-03-26 10:30:30 · answer #4 · answered by zakiit 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Interesting answers! I personally always thought the 'piping' comes from 'pipe' which in turn refers to the oven where something such as irons can be heated hotter than water which 'pipes' when steaming hot...
2007-03-26 10:14:27 · answer #5 · answered by Effendi R 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The derivation of the phrase "piping hot" is the sizzling, whistling sound made by steam escaping from very hot food, which is similar to the sound of high-pitched musical pipes.
2007-03-26 10:10:44 · answer #6 · answered by Alex 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Probably piping refers to steam puffing out of a pipe. Which is a very hot thing indeed.
2007-03-26 10:08:11 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well its like the water that comes from the HOT water pipe - piping hot - they put those signs on the HOT water pipes so people won't burn themselves:-
CAUTION - PIPING HOT!
2007-03-26 10:14:09 · answer #8 · answered by Traveller 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
hot as piping [hot water piping that is]
2007-03-26 10:12:53 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋