Did you know "Pumpernickel", the dark coarse sourdough bread that most people associate with Germany could mean "devil's fart"? Although some say it was named from a tale about Napoleon (or Napoleon's groom, or an anonymous Frenchman), who, while on a military campaign in the part of Europe now known as Germany, was given some pumpernickel bread to eat. The disdainful recipient of this loaf, declaring it unfit for human consumption, instead fed it to a horse named Nicol while stating either "C'est du pain pour Nicol" (i.e., "It is bread for Nicol") or "C'est bon pour Nicol" (i.e., "It is good for Nicol") — a disparagement somewhat similar to Samuel Johnson's definition of "oats" in his Dictionary of the English Language (1755) as "A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people." The German locals, apparently not offended (and also inexplicably lacking a word of their own for this type of bread) decided to adopt the spiteful phrase as a name for the dark loaf, rendering the French "pain pour Nicol" as "pumpernickel."
Here are a few reasons that the story can't be true. The word "pumpernickel" was part of the German language as a pejorative roughly equivalent to the modern English "jerk" over a century before Napoleon was born, and that it also appeared in English as a type of bread before the French emperor's birth.
The alternative origin of "pumpernickel" is quite a gas. "Pumpern" was a New High German word similar in meaning to the English "fart" (so chosen because, like the word "achoo," it imitated the sound it described), and "Nickel" was a form of the name Nicholas, an appellation commonly associated with a goblin or devil (e.g., "Old Nick" is a familiar name for Satan). Hence, pumpernickel is the "devil's fart," allegedly a reference to the bread's indigestible qualities and hence the effect it produced on those who consumed it.
Others believe the word "pumpern" refers to the sound produced by thumping on a loaf of pumpernickel, but that explanation is extremely unlikely.
Ernest Hemingway's favorite meal was raw onion sandwiches on buttered pumpernickel bread.
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