"RLK" dashes_ wrote in message ...
does the word "chow" have its roots in dog or cat??
I thought it to mean "stir fry" or "cook in a wok".

That's what it means in Chinese. But I checked dictionary.com, and
found

Chow: slang = food
[Possibly from Chinese (Cantonese) "tsaap", food, miscellany. See chop
suey.]

Chow: Any of a breed of heavyset dog [...] Also called chow chow.
[Possibly from Chinese (Cantonese) "gou", dog.]

Chow: informal, food. [syn: chuck]

Take your pick :-)

BTW AFAIK neither cat nor dog are stir fried; they are mostly stewed.
Also to me "tsaap" only means "miscellany, mixed".