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'
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'