Cooking Languange

[Jenny A]

Since I've been both listening to a lecture series on the history of the English language and baking all week, cooking language has been on my mind. There are many differences between the vocabulary used in England and that in the U.S. Many of them famous. But when traveling the one's I most notice have to do with cooking and baking. For example I was disappointed to discover that a stuffed roll was just a roll cut in half and used to make a sandwich and not bread dough rolled up with a savory stuffing and baked. We had some difficulty convincing our youngest that teriyaki stew was teriyaki stir-fry not teriyaki soup. And then there's the hamburger my mother ordered that came without bun or the chicken salad I ordered that was a very good cold chicken breast on a couple pieces of lettuce. None of these little surprises hurt us any. But they were surprises.

U.S:

cookie: A small flat, sweet food made of stiff wheat (sometimes with oats as well) dough usually without yeast but with baking soda or power sliced or dropped onto a flat baking sheet.---- Is there a word in England that covers this but no more?

cracker: A small flat savory food made of stiff wheat or other grain flour with no leavening.

quick bread or light bread: a bread made with baking soda or baking powder instead of yeast. It can be sweet or not but is usually sweet.---Not a terminology many people even in the U.S. use anymore except in cookbooks, but useful.

biscuit: A savory quick bread baked in small rounds or squares on a flat baking sheet. Unlike cookies it is not flat or sweet and it has bread-like consistency when baked.

muffin: A quick bread baked in small cups. It can be either savory or sweet, but it is usually sweet like a heavy little cake. --- Is this what the muffin man in the nursery rhyme was selling or was it something else?

cake: A sweet quick bread baked in a pan containing multiple servings.

salad: A cold dish of cubed or shredded greens, vegetables, fruit, and/or meat served in some kind of dressing. It is not simply a cold piece of meat or a cold dish generally.

stew: A thick savory soup served in a soup bowl with a soup spoon.

pudding: A sweet moist dessert.

British or Australian equivalents? Other differences? Stories about not getting what you expected?

[Alex K]

Well I once almost ordered black pudding for desert in England... Fortunately wife stopped it. (In German, the word Pudding means the sweet desert made from milk, starch, sugar and cocoa.)

[Jenny A]

Well I once almost ordered black pudding for desert in England... Fortunately wife stopped it

That might have been a rather less happy surprise.

[Alex K]

Well I once almost ordered black pudding for desert in England... Fortunately wife stopped it

That might have been a rather less happy surprise.

And I'm vegetarian

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

[/b]cookie The Northern Ireland equivalent is 'biscuit', which also covers crackers. A 'cookie' is a 'sweet biscuit', occasionally 'cake'.

cracker 'savoury biscuit'.

quick bread In Northern Ireland, this was 'soda cake' or 'soda bread'.

biscuit 'scone'

muffin 'muffin'

cake 'cake'

salad All sorts, but the NI names generally come with modifiers: 'green salad', 'cold meat salad', 'fruit salad', etc.

stew 'stew'

pudding Can be sweet (Cabinet pudding, plum duff) or savoury (haggis, black or white pudding, etc).

The only real confusion I ever had was while visiting friends in American. We went to a medium-posh restaurant and I ordered a steak, green salad and chips. The waiter looked at me as if just ordered a medium-rare barn owl and fuh-fummed for a second or two when one of my dinner companions spoke up and said, 'He means fried potatoes.' That's when I learned that what I call 'chips', Americans call 'French fries' and what Americans call 'chips', I call 'crisps'.

As I recall, the meal was better than I expected.

Boru

[Tombochan]

Still, it's pretty much sacrelige to order fries with steak, especially at a medium posh restaraunt, Brian. That's likely the reason the waiter blanched.

---

Just sayin'. Lol

[Jenny A]

[/b]cookie The Northern Ireland equivalent is 'biscuit', which also covers crackers. A 'cookie' is a 'sweet biscuit', occasionally 'cake'.---A sweet biscuit I get when in the UK but a cake I would misunderstand.

cracker 'savoury biscuit'---I'd expect biscuits you might serve with gravy..

quick bread In Northern Ireland, this was 'soda cake' or 'soda bread'--we use soda bread sometimes here too.

biscuit 'scone'---a very specific English sort of biscuit and likely to have raisins or currents in it.

muffin 'muffin'

cake 'cake'

salad All sorts, but the NI names generally come with modifiers: 'green salad', 'cold meat salad', 'fruit salad', etc. --- we modify too: greed salad, chicken salad, egg salad, potato salad, ham salad.

stew 'stew'

pudding Can be sweet (Cabinet pudding, plum duff) or savoury (haggis, black or white pudding, etc).---Some very old fashoned savory dishes are still puddings, but without out modifier we mean dessert here.

The only real confusion I ever had was while visiting friends in American. We went to a medium-posh restaurant and I ordered a steak, green salad and chips. The waiter looked at me as if just ordered a medium-rare barn owl and fuh-fummed for a second or two when one of my dinner companions spoke up and said, 'He means fried potatoes.' That's when I learned that what I call 'chips', Americans call 'French fries' and what Americans call 'chips', I call 'crisps'.

As I recall, the meal was better than I expected.

Boru

italic additions mine.

The chips/french fries thing does lead to confusion. Do the French even make them? The crisps/chips thing is almost as confusing though we've borrowed fish and chips to mean breaded fried fish and fried potatoes. I noticed last trip though that most fast food in London had gone Italian or French deli style and there weren't many pasties or fish and chips to be found in the railway stations.

Actually there was more "ethnic" food in England altogether. We stayed in apartment and cooked in most nights and I was happy to eat my fill of lamb which is hard to get here despite the fact that I can't drive anywhere outside of town without seeing sheep. I gather we export them to France.

Squash versus fruit juice or -ade is another one. Though most lemon squash I had was closer to Koolade than lemonade.

---

Oooh Spud. Do you ever call potatoes spuds?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Oooh Spud. Do you ever call potatoes spuds?

Sure, but 'spud' is generally taken to mean raw potatoes, as in He bought ten pounds of spuds. You almost never hear He had spuds with his dinner.

Spuds are also purdies, pratties, and tatties.

Boru

---

Still, it's pretty much sacrelige to order fries with steak, especially at a medium posh restaraunt, Brian. That's likely the reason the waiter blanched.

---

Just sayin'. Lol

Funny that they had it on the menu, then. He blanched because he was an American and thought I was ordering potato crisps, not fried potatoes.

Boru

[Jenny A]

Sure, but 'spud' is generally taken to mean raw potatoes, as in He bought ten pounds of spuds. You almost never hear He had spuds with his dinner.

Spuds are also purdies, pratties, and tatties.

We don't have purdies, pratties, and tatties, but do have taters, also baked Idaho. Idaho is famous for it's taters.

Do you have anything like what we can an English muffin or is it as I suspect and American invention? It's a flat yeast bread cut out like a biscuit, but pan fried. We cut it in half and toast it with butter and maybe add jelly.

[The Valkyrie]

My personal, special cooking language includes such words as "burn", overcook", undercook", "complete nightmare" and, "how the hell did you manage that?"

My cooking sucks!

Glad I have no plans to be a wife.