There are many myths about the origin of the name 'jambalaya.' One commonly repeated folklore is that the word derives from the combination of the French 'jambon' meaning ham, the French article 'à la', a contraction of 'à la manière de' meaning "in the style of", and 'ya', thought to be of West African origin meaning rice.[citation needed] Hence, the dish was named jamb à la ya. European explorers had imported rice from Asia and Africa. Enslaved Africans already had a native name for this crop; they called it 'ya'. As Europeans learned the term 'ya' for rice, it became included in the name of the dish. However, this theory is largely discredited. Ham is not the signature element of the dish, so there is no reason why it would be featured in the name. Furthermore, there is no known African language in which 'ya' means "rice."[citation needed]
Another popular source suggests that the word comes from the Spanish 'jamon' ("ham") + 'paella', a noted Spanish rice dish. However, the evidence for this idea is also thin. Again, ham is not a featured element of the dish, and Spanish speakers would call a ham paella 'paella con jamon', not 'jamon paella.'
The Dictionary of American Food and Drink offers this creative old wives' tale about the origin of the word:
Late one evening a traveling gentleman stopped by a New Orleans inn which had little food remaining from the evening meal. The traveler instructed the cook, "Jean, balayez!" or "Jean, sweep something together!" in the local dialect. The guest pronounced the resulting hodge-podge dish as "Jean balayez."
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