"By 1200 noodles had branched north from Sicily, carried by both
Jews and Christians, and in fact our first evidence for the word
VERMICELLI is from France, where the eleventh-century French scholar
Rashi (or possibly a commentary from one of the medieval Tosafist rabbis
that followed him) uses the Yiddish word VERMISELES, derived via old
French VERMESEIL from Italian VERMICELLI, to describe dough that was
either boiled or fried. VERMISELES soon evolved to VREMZEL and to the
modern Yiddish word CHREMSEL, the name of a sweet doughy pancake now
most commonly made of matzo-meal and eaten at Passover."
Dan Jurafsky, The Language of Food.
