Culinary names, menu names, or kitchen names are names of foods used in the preparation or selling of food, as opposed to their names in agriculture or in scientific nomenclature. The menu name may even be different from the kitchen name. For example, from the 19th until the mid-20th century, many restaurant menus were written in French and not in the local language.
Examples include veal (calf), calamari (squid), and sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus gland). Culinary names are especially common for fish and seafood, where multiple species are marketed under a single familiar name.
Examples
Foods may come to have distinct culinary names for a variety of reasons:
Euphemism: the idea of eating some foods may disgust or offend some eaters regardless of their actual taste
In French, chestnuts are called châtaignes on the tree, but marrons in the kitchen
"Laver" is a culinary name for certain edible algae,[11] usually species of Porphyra such as Porphyra umbilicalis, although "green laver" may refer to species of Monostroma or Ulva; species of Ulva are also known as "sea lettuce"
Truita de patata (lit. 'potato trout') in Catalan cuisine, a potato omelette: "if you don't catch a trout, you've got to have something more humble for dinner -- something to pretend is a trout".[12]
Cappon magro (lit. 'fast-day capon'), a seafood salad
Humor and ethnic dysphemism
Humorous exaltation often takes the form of a dysphemism disparaging particular groups or places.[13] It has been observed that "Celtic dishes seem to receive more than their share of humorous names in English cookbooks".[14] Many of these are now considered offensive.[15] See List of foods named after places for foods named after their actual place of origin.
Welsh rabbit, melted cheese on toast. "Welsh" was probably used as a pejorative dysphemism,[13] meaning "anything substandard or vulgar",[16] and suggesting that "only people as poor and stupid as the Welsh would eat cheese and call it rabbit",[17][18] or that "the closest thing to rabbit the Welsh could afford was melted cheese on toast".[19] Or it may simply allude to the "frugal diet of the upland Welsh".[20]
↑ Kate Burridge, Blooming English: Observations on the Roots, Cultivation and Hybrids of the English Language, ISBN0521548322, 2004, p. 220
↑ Robert Hendrickson, The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 1997, as quoted in Horn, "Spitten image"
↑ cf. "Welsh comb" = "the thumb and four fingers" in Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1788, as quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'Welsh'
Andre Simon, A concise encyclopedia of gastronomy mentions 16 different 'culinary names' passim
Related Research Articles
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Sweetbread is a culinary name for the thymus or pancreas, typically from calf or lamb. Sweetbreads have a rich, slightly gamey flavor and a tender, succulent texture. They are often served as an appetizer or a main course and can be accompanied by a variety of sauces and side dishes.
Offal, also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, and these lists of organs vary with culture and region, but usually exclude skeletal muscle. Offal may also refer to the by-products of human meat or of milled grains, such as corn or wheat.
Welsh rarebit or Welsh rabbit is a dish consisting of a hot cheese-based sauce served over slices of toasted bread. The original 18th-century name of the dish was the jocular "Welsh rabbit", which was later reinterpreted as "rarebit", as the dish contains no rabbit. Variants include English rabbit, Scottish rabbit, buck rabbit, golden buck, and blushing bunny.
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Ragout is a main dish stew.
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This is a list of prepared-foods list articles on Wikipedia.
Welsh cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Wales. While there are many dishes that can be considered Welsh due to their ingredients and/or history, dishes such as cawl, Welsh rarebit, laverbread, Welsh cakes, bara brith and Glamorgan sausage have all been regarded as symbols of Welsh food. Some variation in dishes exists across the country, with notable differences existing in the Gower Peninsula, a historically isolated rural area which developed self-sufficiency in food production.
Anchovy paste is a fish paste food product prepared using anchovies as a primary ingredient. It is used as a condiment and as an ingredient in various dishes, such as Scotch woodcock, and is a mass-produced product. It has been used for centuries to provide flavor to foods and as a source of nutrients, and it is a part of the cuisines of Great Britain, Italy, the Philippines and Vietnam. It is a major export product of Morocco.
Bacon-wrapped foods are foods that are prepared by being covered in bacon. They may be baked, fried, or grilled. Popular bacon-wrapped dishes include angels on horseback, devils on horseback, and pigs in blankets. Bacon has long been used for barding roasts, especially game birds.
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