PASTICHE: 1: a musical, literary, or artistic work that imitates the style of previous work or is made up of selections from different works 2: hodgepodge
It all began with macaroni. Our word "pastiche" is from French, but the French word was borrowed from Italian, where the word is pasticcio. Pasticcio is what the Italians called a kind of "macaroni pie." English-speakers familiar with this multilayered dish had begun to apply the name to various sorts of potpourris or hodgepodges (musical, literary, or othewise) by the 18th century. For over a hundred years we were happy with "pasticcio," until we discovered the French word pastiche sometime in the latter part of the 1800s. Although we still occasionally use "pasticcio" in its extended meaning, "pastiche" is now much more common.
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