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leek

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A cultivated plant (Allium ampeloprasum) with a long white stem and flat leaves, used in cooking; the national emblem of Wales.

Detailed Definition
Leek derives from Old English "leac" and describes the tall, mildly flavored allium that was among the most important vegetables of the medieval English diet, cultivated in every kitchen garden. As the national emblem of Wales, it carries strong cultural and patriotic associations, worn on St. David's Day. Shakespeare references leeks in Henry V when the Welsh soldier Fluellen forces Pistol to eat a leek, making it a focus for national pride and its mockery. In poetry the leek serves both as a precise image of the productive kitchen garden—the specific, homely vegetables that sustained life—and as a national symbol. Its long white form, the way it grows half-buried in ridged earth, gives it a particular visual character that distinguishes it from the more spherical forms of other alliums.
Example
Example in poetry:
The leek as Wales's national emblem — worn on St. David's Day, the badge that distinguishes Welsh soldiers in Shakespeare's Henry V — gives it a cultural and patriotic significance that transcends its culinary identity; Shakespeare's Fluellen forcing Pistol to eat a leek is one of the most memorable scenes of national pride in English drama, the humble vegetable transformed into the instrument of Welsh dignity's vindication; A poet might write "the leek stood its ground in the kitchen garden with quiet persistence, its white shank deep in ridged earth, its flag-leaves reading the wind like a small impractical sail"; In medieval cookery poetry the leek is a staple of the honest English table — the vegetable that appears in pottage, in broth, in the basic nourishment of the working household — representing the plain abundance of the domestic kitchen garden; The leek's visual character — the long white stem emerging from the earth, the flat blue-green leaves above — gives it a distinctive appearance that separates it from other alliums and makes it a recognizable feature of the winter kitchen garden; In elegies for traditional kitchen gardens and their replacement by supermarket vegetables, the leek stands for a specific relationship between home, soil, and table — the garden that fed the family through winter from its own ground.
Additional Notes
Leek requires students to navigate between its horticultural, culinary, and symbolic dimensions. As a kitchen garden vegetable, it belongs to the mundane domestic agriculture that pastoral convention tends to exclude but that georgic and anti-pastoral verse includes as evidence of authentic rural life. As a national emblem of Wales, it carries cultural and political significance that can be deployed in verse about Welsh identity, national pride, and the assertion of cultural distinctiveness. Students should read Shakespeare's treatment of the leek in Henry V (Act V, Scene i) — where the Welsh soldier Fluellen forces the English soldier Pistol to eat a leek he has mocked — as a scene that both satirizes excessive national pride and affirms the dignity of the emblem. The leek's visual character (the long white shank, the broad flat leaves, the half-buried form emerging from ridged earth) gives it a distinctive presence in the kitchen garden poem that more rounded vegetables lack. Students should be aware that the leek belongs to the Allium family alongside onion, garlic, and chives, and that the cultural associations of the Allium family (strong smell, peasant vigor, democratic earthiness) apply to the leek as well as to its relatives. Related terms: garlic, parsnep, dibble, tilth.
Also Known As
leeke wild leek pot-leek Allium porrum
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