The boiled rice dish known as congee does congeal when cooled to make a kind of porridge, but those two words aren’t related. Congeal is related to French congelé, the past participle of French congeler, “to freeze.” Congeal and congeler share a Latin root with gel, gelatin, jelly, and gelato. Congee comes from Tamil (pronounced something like /kañci/), and variations of the name appear in most languages of India. The more modern spelling is kanji, and it’s also called jook or juk. The name jook comes from a Cantonese word 粥 that also inspired the Thai and Hawaiian names for this dish. In Japan congee is known as okayu (おかゆ), and in Sri Lanka, it’s called kenda. This is part of a complete episode.
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To slip someone a mickey means to doctor a drink and give it to an unwitting recipient. The phrase goes back to Mickey Finn of the Lone Star Saloon in Chicago, who in the late 19th century was notorious for drugging certain customers and relieving...
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