Flowery food descriptions: 'hand baked'

[Fnaar]

I reckon the Academie Francaise will love it...

You mean the French Academy, as we call it over here

 

[Tim Bennet.]

why order beef when you can ask for cow

This one actually does intrigue me. We bang on about 'young people today not knowing where their food comes from', but there is obviously a long tradition in the UK of distancing 'the meat' from the animal from whence it comes. It's only poultry that use a similar name.


If you flick through a modern British cookbook you are very unlikely to see any pictures or references to the 'host animal', whereas my French cookbook (as in a cookbook from France), introduces each section by having a full page spread of the animal from which the main ingredients have been produced.

 

[theclaud]

Can I just say that I'm enjoying this thread enormously?

 

[byegad]

Drizzled gets me. It translates as we made some lovely sauce to put on your meal, but you're only getting enough to hint at the taste.

How's about drenched?

 

[theclaud]

Drizzled gets me. It translates as we made some lovely sauce to put on your meal, but you're only getting enough to hint at the taste.

How's about drenched?

What's it called if you want something that's more than a drizzle and less than a drench? Olive oil on your pan bagnat, for example? Or should I say "wet bread"?

 

[User482]

I've no idea why you are wandering off into the realm of chewed paper. Perhaps it's a halloween thing.

I call it burnt cream because that's what I've always called it. As I said, I don't care what you call it, and I'm happy to see it called anything people want, I would just prefer them to spell it right if they use the French equivalent, instead of the English way.

Gravy is gravy. Jus is a modern introduction to describe something which was already there. It's pretentious and it doesn't add any extra value.

As for the final straw cow I ask for beef because I no longer speak Anglo-Saxon. Equally when I go to my mums for Sunday lunch I don't see, "Ee I'm right clemmed, could you pass the jus boat"?

As you said yourself, papier mache means chewed paper. So why use the French?

Burnt cream does not accurately describe the dessert, but there's nothing to stop you being wrong with your description, I suppose.

The point about beef vs cow is that our language evolves through the adoption of words from other languages. So the distinctions you are choosing to make are arbitrary.

Gravy is gravy? Sirloin and fillet are both steaks, but it's useful to distinguish between the two. So, instead of the ugly unthickened/ thickened distinction we could just use jus and gravy.

 

[User482]

This one actually does intrigue me. We bang on about 'young people today not knowing where their food comes from', but there is obviously a long tradition in the UK of distancing 'the meat' from the animal from whence it comes. It's only poultry that use a similar name.


If you flick through a modern British cookbook you are very unlikely to see any pictures or references to the 'host animal', whereas my French cookbook (as in a cookbook from France), introduces each section by having a full page spread of the animal from which the main ingredients have been produced.

My understanding is that the words boeuf and porc were introduced by the Normans, and were later anglicised. Prior to that, they were called cow and pig.

As a general point though, I absolutely agree. There's little connection between the animal and a blue foam tray in a supermarket.

 

[Rezillo]

I think I've learnt today that raspberry jus, which a few years ago would have been raspberry sauce, is in fact raspberry unthickened gravy. I'll give it a miss.

John

 

[MissTillyFlop]

Nobody has yet answered my burning question on this thread - wouldn't it be much more efficient to bake it in an oven?

I mean my hands get warm occasionally, but it'd still take a while to BAKE anything with them...

 

[User169]

I think I've learnt today that raspberry jus, which a few years ago would have been raspberry sauce, is in fact raspberry unthickened gravy. I'll give it a miss.

John

Very wise. Chuck the gravy away too.

A "touch" of green sauce if you absolutely must.

 

[XmisterIS]

My understanding is that the words boeuf and porc were introduced by the Normans, and were later anglicised. Prior to that, they were called cow and pig.

As a general point though, I absolutely agree. There's little connection between the animal and a blue foam tray in a supermarket.

Cow and Swine (German: Cow = die Kuh, Pig = das Schwein). Apparently the origin of the word "pig" is unknown, although it does appear in Old English texts, it is not a Germanic word. Who knows, it could have been borrowed from the ancient Celtic language spoken in the UK before the Saxons arrived ...

 

[byegad]

Coulis? OK... thin, runny jam?

 

[Maz]

The French word for "mustard" is "moutarde". Therefore, it follows that the French word for "custard", should be "coutarde". I shall write to Prez Sarkozy and see what he reckons.

He'll probably call you a silly 'batarde' .

 

[User482]

I spoke to my big brother today and he said they'd been offered free range belly roast with a concentrated pork jews for lunch. Krusty would have been proud!

I made coq au vin last night. Chicken in wine would be a more accurate description, but loses a certain je ne sais quoi.

 

[byegad]

In a Transit?