I have been alerted by a reader to an odd etymology: the word aspic, in the words of the OED “A savoury jelly made with meat stock; a cold dish consisting of such a jelly set in a mould and containing pieces of meat, seafood, or hard-boiled eggs,” is from French, and “Littré suggests its derivation < aspic asp, because it is ‘froid comme un aspic,’ a proverbial phrase in French.” The entry is from 1885; Wiktionary elaborates somewhat:
Borrowed from French aspic, from Latin aspis, and possibly influenced by French basilic (“basilisk”). The culinary sense may come from association with the snake due to the traditional colors and cold temperature of aspic, in addition to the fact that the gelatin was often molded in a shape similar to a coiled snake.
There is also an aspic “An asp (see asp n.2); used chiefly in poetry” (e.g. a1616 “This is an Aspickes traile,” W. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra v. ii. 344), which is of course from Latin aspis, and yet another, “The Great Lavender or Spike (Lavandula Spica), a plant from which a volatile aromatic oil is obtained” (1604 “Oyle Of Aspicke, which the Physitians and Painters vse much, the one for plasters, the other to vernish their pictures,” E. Grimeston, translation of J. de Acosta, Naturall & Morall Historie Indies iv. xxix. 288), which has a different history:
< French aspic (in huile d’ aspic vulgar form of huile de spic) for spic, < Italian spigo the Great Lavender, originally Spikenard, = Old French espic < Latin spīcus (in medieval Latin) Spikenard, doublet of spīca spike.
A messy little cluster — thanks, david!
Charles Perry relayed a proposed origin of “aspic” from Arabic, with no connection to snakes, here in comments in 2011 and again in 2023:
Needless to say, I’d forgotten all about that; it does sound more probable…