Dear Dumb Guy: What’s the difference between regular potato salad and German potato salad? - Culinarily challenged in Cincinnati.

Dear Cincinnati: What’s the difference? All the difference in the world! Namely, German potato salad doesn’t use potatoes, but rather a colorful mixture of diced radish, rutabaga, slivered almonds and dish detergent.

The confusion no doubt stems from the mistranslation of the German word “potaten,” which literally means “please do not eat this” but was misread by 18th-century cookbook author Carl “Fuzzy Dice” Hopkins as “potatoes.” Not so much a translation, really, as a misspelling. A tragic one, at that, because it introduced this dish into mainstream awareness.

Bonus fact: Fuzzy Dice Hopkins was later the name of a blues singer who recorded three singles for the Chess Records label. Only one of them, “Gonna eat my baby’s potato salad,” was at all successful, and not very at that. Astonishingly, both the choice of his name and subject matter appear to be a coincidence, as he had no knowledge of his namesake.