Words Of MouthBy Tom Fitzmorris
annatto, n.--The pulp and seeds from pods growing on the achiote, a tropical South American tree. Both seeds and pulp are used very widely in food coloring. The most common annatto-colored foods are margarine, butter, cheddar cheese, and yellow rice. In many inexpensive restaurants, paella is colored with annatto powder instead of the vastly more expensive saffron. Annatto has only the subtlest of flavors, nothing like that of saffron. Its ability to color what it touches is very powerful. In South America, it has long been used by indigenous people as skin coloration, and the tree it comes from is nicknamed "the lipstick tree." Sometimes the stuff is called achiote. Although it is legitimately a natural coloring, more people are allergic to it than have reactions to artificial colors. (But not that many.)
antipasto, n.--The word means "before the meal" in Italian. Generally, it denotes appetizers, the equivalent of tapas in Spain and hors d'oeuvres in France. The words has come to mean a specific range of dishes, most of which are served at room temperature, and many of which are marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, and herbs. In Italian restaurants in Italy, they're traditionally presented on a big table as you enter. (Unfortunately, we see that only rarely in this country.) A majority of them involved cooked and marinated vegetables, beginning with olives and running through carrots, endives, escarole, eggplant, cauliflower, and more. Cooked, marinated seafood, particularly squid, are also common. Cured and smoked meats and cheeses complete the most generous antipasto arrays. The only problem with good antipasto is that it's very easy to fill up on them.
arctic char, n.--a medium-size fish (usually around four pounds) in the salmon family. Like most such, it lives in both saltwater and freshwater. The arctic char lives farther north than any other species in freshwater, as little as 500 miles from the North Pole. During the summer, those fish that aren't locked in freshwater lakes migrate into the ocean. They're found all over the Arctic region. Char is a fine grilling fish, with a pinkish color that get slighter as it cooks. (Although some populations have red flesh.) It is a fish we may well see more of in the coming years, as it's been identified as a sustainable resource and is farmed in Norway and in nearby countries. It turns up more often at Emeril's than anywhere else locally.
arrabbiata, adj., Italian. Also all' arrabbiata--Served with a tomato sauce with enough crushed red pepper flakes to register a distinct hotness on the palate. The word means "angry," a reference not only to the red pepper, but also to the fact that it's made quickly over high heat, as if the cook were agitated about something. Arrabbiata sauce usually includes more than the average amount of garlic, too. It's a specialty of Rome, and is most often served with pasta--usually tube pastas like penne or ziti.
bagna cauda [bahn-yuh COW-duh], n., Italian--A warm antipasto with a consistency somewhere between a spread and a chunky dip. It's made of olive oil, garlic, and anchovies, all cooked down to the point that everything's soft. The words mean "warm bath" in Italian, the bathers being pieces of cauliflower, carrots, or bread, with which you can scoop up this powerfully-flavored appetizer. It's not bad spread on the bread you'll use to make a fried oyster sandwich. Here's a recipe for bagna cauda from Michael Chiarello.
baking powder, n.--A mixture of ingredients which, when combined with flour and wet ingredients to make a dough, have a reaction that produces gas and causes the dough to rise. Baking powder is made many different ways, but almost always includes a dry alkali (like bicarbonate of soda) and a dry acid (like cream of tartar). Baking powder has a shelf life, because the humidity of the air is enough for the acid and the base in it to react slowly and thereby lose its potency. The most often-asked question about baking powder is whether you can substitute baking soda for it. The answer is no. Because. . .
baking soda, n.--Baking soda is almost perfectly pure sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO³). Even the stuff you buy to deodorize your refrigerator is pure enough to use in a lab. It enhances the action of baking power, but does not replace it.
barbecue, n., adv.--Any attempt to define barbecue creates an instant argument among its practitioners. But we think this definition captures its essence: the cooking of meats, birds, or seafood in an outdoor pit (open or closed) with a wood or charcoal fire, using either direct or indirect heat, or a sequential combination of the two, at a temperature higher than for smoking but lower than for grilling. That would be in the mid to high 200s. The word is frequently misspelled "barbeque" or "bar-B-Q." It derives from Spanish and ultimately from a Caribbean Native American word, barbacoa, describing the roasting of meats over an open fire.
basa, n.--A fish in the catfish family, native to the Mekong River valley in Vietnam. It has been eaten there and exported through Southeast Asia for a long time. It's become a big business since it began to be raised in fish farms. It became a big story in this country after large amounts of basa began showing up in grocery stores and restaurants here. In flavor and texture, basa compares favorably with farm-raised catfish, and it's usually cheaper. For some time, it was sold as catfish, but laws were passed to make a distinction. Things were complicated by the entry of a second, not-as-good Vietnamese catfish called tra, masquerading as basa. Here's a good story about basa, tra, catfish, and the attendant controversy.
basmati, n., adj., Indian--The most famous of the aromatic rices, basmati is the dominant rice of India, and is universal in Indian restaurants. Its grains are slender and long. When cooked, the rice has a natural aroma that is usually compared with roasting nuts, popcorn, or nutmeg. (The word "basmati" means "fragrant.") It remains somewhat firm with discrete grains after cooking. Most of its starch is on the outside, and is sometimes washed away before cooking. Basmati has extended its reach beyond Indian cuisine to appear in many other kitchens, even though it's a good deal more expensive than native rices. Numerous hybrids have been grown in this country, notably "Texmati." It's probably not a good idea to substitute basmati for other rices in classic rice dishes (such as jambalaya or risotto), but as a side dish on its own it's a nice change of pace.
bay leaf, n.--The leaf of the laurel tree, an evergreen native to the Mediterranean countries. It has long be used to add a touch of complexity to the flavors of soups, sauces, stews, and other flowing recipes. It's the same laurel used to crown winners of athletic competitions in ancient Rome and Greece. The flavor and aroma of bay leaves don't become apparent until after they've dried for a few weeks. They do lose their flavor after long storage, however. When one or two leaves are used, their flavor is subtle. However, it's easy to overuse bay leaves. An experiment that every cook should conduct is to break a few bay leaves into a cup of hot water and let it steep, like tea. Then smell and taste it. That will reveal, often for your first time, just what the leaves impart to a dish. It is rumored that you should never swallow a bay leaf. It's not poisonous, but a whole leaf can be a choking hazard--as many other foods that size can be.
bean thread, n.--Also called bean thread noodles, glass noodles, cellophane noodles, and harusame. When cooked, these Asian noodles--which otherwise behave like standard pasta--become transparent. They're made with the starch from mung bean sprouts, hence the name. They have a great mouthfeel and look interesting in a dish. They're widely using in East Asian cooking, particularly in Thai cuisine.
bechamel, n. One of the "mother sauces" of classical French cooking used as a starting point for many other sauces. It's essentially a blonde roux with milk whisked in, with a pinch of nutmeg. Chefs from the old school insisted on straining it through cheesecloth to make it perfectly smooth. Bechamel adds richness and texture to a sauce or a dish (particularly gratins), without adding a foreground flavor. I like using it as a base for crab cakes. It's named for the Maquis de Bechamel, who employed a sauce like it in the cooking for Louis XIV's court.
bento, n., adj., Japanese--In restaurants, a complete meal in a box with compartments, each holding a different small food item. The boxes are most often rectangular, about two inches deep, and enameled. They descend from the boxes used for lunches and picnics in Japan. The word refers to both the food and the box itself. A typical bento will include a salad, rice, grilled pieces of meat, fried fish, shrimp, a small omelet, pickled or poached cold vegetables, fried vegetables, or noodles. A bento in an ambitious restaurant may have a dozen or more compartments with some very beautiful arrangements of unusual food. Click here for the entire dictionary so far. Click here to ask about a food word you've wondered about.
beurre noir [buhr NWA], n., French. --Literally, "black butter." Melted butter that has been heated long enough that its solids have browned. It is used as a sauce. Sometimes vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, or lemon are added. This is one of the two things commonly known as "meuniere sauce" around New Orleans. It's the stuff they pour over trout meuniere at Galatoire's, for instance. Beurre noir is related to beurre noisette ("hazelnut butter," for its color), which is theoretically lighter in color but in practice the same thing as beurre noir.
bisque [BISK], n.--A thickened soup, usually made with shellfish. The word has been in use for so long in France that its meaning has changed over time. The original bisques were soups made with game birds. The word later came to mean specifically crawfish bisque in France, enriched with cream, thickened with pureed rice, and and flavored with Cognac. In the transfer of French cuisine to Louisiana by way of the Cajuns, bisque remained a crawfish soup, but changed in every other way. Dark roux replaced the cream, and the rice--if any--remained whole. Now we see bisques of all sorts of things (still mostly seafood). Most modern bisques are very thick and rich with reduced cream. However, there's enough variation that it's a good idea to ask at least what color it is before ordering it in a restaurant.
black currant, n.--A small berry that grows on a shrub found throughout Europe. It's not as much eaten as used as a flavoring. Black currants are intense, astringent, and seedy. They were banned from cultivation in the United States in the 1960s, and still is in some parts of the country. That explains its rarity here; most of what passes for currants are actually black Corinth grapes (see currant). Black currants are made into cassis liqueur, added to white wine to make kir or "Chablis cassis." That's a beverage that has largely gone out of style--save for kir royale, a blend of Champagne and creme de cassis. Some wine tasters often refer to certain big Bordeaux wines as having a currant-like taste, even though few of them have ever tasted an actual currant.
blanquette, n.--This word is a double entendre. It has in it a reference to whiteness (the French word "blanc"), as well as a play on the word "blanket." A blanquette is a white meat served in a white sauce so thick that it's hard to tell where the sauce ends and the sauced begins . As you might imagine, this presents the danger of a very bland dish, but in the hands of a chef who's trying to accomplish more than the visual it can actually be very good. The best I remember was during the glory days of the French chefs in the Midi restaurant in the former Le Meridien Hotel on Canal Street, which often had blanquette de veau on their excellent lunch buffet. But thinking about that now makes me feel that I may as well be talking about the days of nickel pay phones.
bonito, n.--A fish related to tuna and mackerel, two to three feet long when fully grown. The flesh is dark red. Species of bonito are found worldwide, including in the Gulf of Mexico. When caught there, it's often cut up and used for bait. In Japan, bonito is widely used to make dried fish flakes (katsuobushi). You'll see those flakes in many dishes in sushi bars (it's often sprinkled over the rice in chirashi sushi bowls). It's also used to make the fish stock called dashi, used in many Japanese dishes. Bonito can be eaten on its own, even as sushi, but not commonly in the United States.
bonne femme, adj., French--The words literally mean good woman, with the connotation that this good woman is running a household and kitchen. When applied to food, it usually means a dish cooked simply in the oven with a lot of garnish. Creole cooking includes a number of bonne femme dishes, all of them so old that they show up only in restaurants of long duration. The most famous of bonne femme dish is made with a roasted chicken, potatoes, onions, butter, and quite a bit of garlic. Tujague's and Antoine's both have it, although the recipes differ. Antoine's also has oysters bonne femme, a totally different dish, with a buttery sauce topped with bread crumbs.
borscht (also spelled borshch), n.--A soup usually made of beef stock, with various root vegetables, almost always including beets. That makes it some shade of red--usually an alarming magenta. It's served either hot ot cold, usually with a finishing dollop of sour cream. The national soup of the Ukraine, but found all over Eastern Europe in one form or another. In this country, it's particularly identified with Ashkenazi Jewish cooking, since so many American Jews can trace their origins to Russia. Most large delis in New York, for example, serve borscht every day. It is almost never seen in New Orleans, although in the 1970s a grand restaurant in Metairie called Romanoff's made it the house soup.
brabant potatoes, n.--Fried potatoes, cut into cubes before cooking. They're often finished in the oven with a drizzle of butter. The butter is usually flavored with garlic or green onions. Brabant potatoes are essentially an enhancement of French fries. They're named for the Duchy of Brabant, which straddled parts of Central Belgium and the Netherlands. The people in that area are more enthralled by (and does a better job of cooking) fried potatoes than any other place on earth.
braunschweiger, n., German--A sausage made mostly of pork liver. It's usually smoked. Its flavor is much like that of a liver pate or liver cheese, depending on the quality. The texture is soft enough that it can be spread on bread or crackers. It's named for Braunschweig, Germany. It is more popular in the northern states than here in the south, although it has appeared here and there in delis. The critical thing to know about braunschweiger is that, once sliced, it goes bad quickly. So buy only a little at a time, if you buy it at all.
broccoli raab, n., Italian--A green, leafy vegetable that's also known by the names broccoli di rapé, broccoli rabe, rapini, or just raab. It's only distantly related to broccoli, and probably got the name because small florets are sometimes found among its ragged leaves. It's really more closely related to the turnip, and the flavor of its leaves and stems are like peppery turnip greens. Unlike turnip greens, however, it's not often cooked to the point that the leaves have wilted. Broccoli raab is most popular in Italy and China, and American restaurants serving those cuisines sneak it onto plates as a side dish occasionally. It does make a nice change of pace from more familiar vegetables, but it hasn't exploded in popularity.
buffet, [buh-FAY; also BOO-fay, especially when applied to a cheap, inferior buffet], n.--An array of prepared food set in serving dishes on a counter, for serving oneself. It's named for the French word for the piece of furniture on which such an array is presented. Buffets are classically presented with much attention given to the visual appeal of the food. In some, this is so important that the food cannot be eaten. Buffets in restaurants are large displays of food to which guests can help themselves with no limits. They're most popular at the morning meal, either breakfast or brunch. ¶ Click here for the entire dictionary so far. Click here to ask about a food word you've wondered about.
bulgur, n. Also known as bulgar and burghul. Briefly boiled wheat grains, dried until brittle, and then cracked into small bits. Bulgur is sometimes served on its own, but more often it's combined with other ingredients to make a wide range of Middle eastern dishes. Among the most popular of these are tabbouleh salad (with parsley, tomato, onions, and lemon); kafta kebabs (mixed with ground beef or lamb, then grilled), and kibbe (also made with beef or lamb, both in raw and cooked forms).
butterbean, n.--Also spelled butter bean. An unusually large, full-grown, cream-colored variety of lima bean most popular in the southern United States. The word is used to distinguish these from the smaller, green, baby lima beans--which may well be from the same plant. Butterbeans are named for their creamy, spreadable texture when cooked. That's is so pronounced that some chefs use butterbeans for making dips. The flavor is nutty and distinctive. Butterbeans are associated with African American cooking, but in fact they're eaten by everyone in the South. They can be turned into a very filling meal at a very small cost. They're especially good in the company of ham, in almost any form.
cacciatore [kah-chyah-TOE-reh], adj.--Italian for "in the hunter's style." When attached to the name of a main food item (chicken cacciatore, to give the most familiar example), it means that food has been cooked and served with a tomato sauce with mushrooms and savory herbs, such as might be found in the woods. Although cacciatore dishes remain in full currency in Italy, we're seeing them less and less often in the United States. I can think of fewer than ten restaurants in New Orleans that have cacciatore dishes. They are, however, easy to make at home, and quite delicious, especially if the mushrooms are interesting.
caciocavallo, n., Italian--A cheese popular in the southern half of of Italy, and made there since Roman times. It's a pale, straw-colored cheese that has different flavors and textures, depending on how much aging it receives. It can be anything from a soft, sliceable cheese to a hard, sharp one suitable for grating. Its name--which translates as "cheese on horseback"--is a reference to the bags once used in the initial stages of its making. They resembled saddle bags. An unusual use of caciocavallo in Sicily is a dish called caciu in the local dialect. It's a seared slab of cheese served with a vinegar and oil sauce. Its texture and color makes it resemble meat. It's served during Lent, mostly.
canapé, n.--A small tidbit of food, served on a thin piece of toast or cracker. The topping can be almost anything, although not usually sweet. The flavors of the ingredients are typically concentrated and intense. The underlayer tends to be bland, acting primarily as a carrier that won't compete with the flavors of the topping. Canapes can range in size from a single bite to the size of a small hamburger. Some are designed to be very ornate. The word translates from French as "couch." Canapes were once universal at cocktail parties, but went out of style for a long time. They seem to be coming back in restaurants as amuse bouche courses.
cap bread, n.--A unique loaf of bread in the light, thin-crusted style of New Orleans French bread. It's shaped like a pillow, about six inches long, four inches wide, and two inches thick. A narrow appendage coming off one of the ends wraps back on top. It makes the loaf look like a gigantic chrysalis. Cap bread was a tradition for a number of older restaurants, notably Tujague's, Arnaud's, and the Peppermill, but it did not come back strong after the hurricane. Originally, cap bread was much larger (it was usually served as a half-loaf, and then sliced). It also had a coarser texture and a much darker crust.
capers, n., pl.--Pickled flower buds of a bush that grows throughout the Mediterranean, used as a garnish in salads and with smoked fish, among other dishes. Their distinctive flavor only emerges after the buds are pickled with salt and vinegar. The best and most expensive capers are the smallest ones. As they get bigger, they get softer and less concentrated in flavor. If the buds open, they make a small but pretty, hairy flower. The fruit is about the size of a small olive, with five white stripes from end to end. They're called caperberries, and have a somewhat similar taste to that of capers, but not exactly. Caperberries are popular in cocktails and salads.
cappacola, n., Italian--A ham-like, dry-cured pork shoulder, sometimes made with a distinctly peppery flavor. The name literally means "cured shoulder." It's also sometimes called by the more generic name coppa, and sometimes spelled capicola. The slurred slang pronunciation comes out "gabbagool," a word heard frequently in The Sopranos (it was Tony's favorite deli meat). Cappacola is pretty good by itself, but it's commonly used on pizza, as much as a seasoning as a meat. Calling it Italian tasso would not be far off the mark.
chaurice, n.--A Louisiana Creole hot sausage made of fresh ground pork. It evolved from Spanish roots in New Orleans. It is particularly favored by the African-American community in New Orleans, although everybody eats it. The peppery flavor comes largely from cayenne pepper or crushed red chili pepper flakes. Much variation in texture and flavor can be seen from the many makers of chaurice, but the most vaunted brands make it very hot indeed. It's popular grilled, served over red beans or in a poor boy sandwich.
Cheddar, n., adj.--The world's most popular cheese, originally made in the town of the same name in Somerset, England, as long ago as the twelfth century. It's a semi-hard cheese, aged for many months before sale. Unlike most other cheeses named for places, "Cheddar" has become generic, and is made everywhere. What unites them is a method called "cheddaring." That's a cheesemaker's term for cutting the curds formed from the cow's milk and stacking the resulting slabs atop one another. The weight of the cheese makes it denser and more uniform in texture. Most Cheddars, even the cheap ones, are made in enormous wheels or blocks, and cut into pieces for sale. The orange color of the standard Cheddar is from an additive, annato. Cheddars made by traditional methods in England are very pale yellow, almost white.
chickpea, n.--Also known as garbanzo bean. A round, dense, pale tan bean, grown and eaten since prehistoric times in the Middle East. It remains one of the most common ingredients in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking. Ground up, it's the principal ingredient in hummus and falafel. Most chickpeas are sold dried or canned, although there is such a thing as fresh chickpeas. They grow in pods of two bright green beans, looking like peas. Since they dry quickly, these are almost never seen. The hardness of the chickpea must be addressed in any recipe using them. Even after being soaked or cooked for a long time, they remain very firm,. Food processors have made them much more commonly used.
chive, n. Most often used in plural form, chives. The smallest cultivated member of the onion family, chives have long, hollow, round leaves that spring up from a perennial bulb. One snips off the tops of the chive shoots to use them as an aromatic herb. Their flavor is decidedly oniony, but in a very mild way. Its most common use (in its dried, snipped form) is as one of the herbs used to turn hollandaise into bearnaise sauce. In recent years, the long whole leaves have taken the place of parsley as a garnish in contemporary restaurants.
chocolate truffle, n.--A light, rich combination of chocolate and cream, whipped until light. The mixture is made into spheres about an inch in diameter, then dusted with cocoa powder. The flavor is at first bite even more intense than pure chocolate, because of the richness added by the cream's fat. Either light or dark chocolate can be used, and other flavors and ingredients (hazelnuts, for example) can be included. Chocolate truffles are so named because of their resemblance to true truffles--the underground fruiting bodies of a family of mushrooms.
chop suey, n., Chinese--The English transliteration of two Cantonese words that mean something like "this and that in little bits." It is widely believed that chop suey was invented by Chinese cooks in America for Americans, and is not a real Chinese dish. Stories differ on where and when; the two that most reek of plausibility are in San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, and during the building of the Central Pacific Railroad. In fact, Chinese authorities note that dishes like this are prepared all around Canton. The Penguin Companion to Food even specifies a neighborhood: Toisan, in the countryside south of Canton. The nature of this dish is that there's no recipe: the chef uses whatever he has at hand to produce a stir-fried dish with a little meat, a lot of vegetables, and sometimes (but not always) noodles. Despite all this authenticity, chop suey as made in Chinese restaurants now is a relic of the first wave of American Chinese restaurants, and is likely to be one of the worst dishes on the menu.
chorizo, n., Spanish--A sausage made from chopped pork and pork fat, made reddish in color by the addition of dried red pepper or paprika. Often (but not always), chorizo has a peppery flavor, sometimes very much so. The chorizo from Spain tends to be quite firm, from having been cured and dried. It also has a smoky flavor, but that comes from the paprika. It can usually be eaten as is. However, some kinds of chorizo--especially in this country--are uncured sausages made with fresh ground pork and a good deal of cayenne, and must be cooked. It's much like the Creole-style chaurice (hot sausage), with which it shares a common ancestor a couple of centuries ago.
choux pastry, n.--Also called pate a choux. A smooth, puffy, rich pastry whose most familiar use is for cream puffs and the popular dessert called profiteroles. It's made by stirring flour into boiling, buttered water, then whipping in eggs. The sticky, moist dough that results can then be baked. But it can also be used to coat a wide variety of other foods which are then fried to make fritters--or, to use the French word for them, beignets. (The beignets we dust with powdered sugar here to have with cafe au lait here in New Orleans are made of an entirely different dough.)
cioppino [cho-PEE-no], n. Italian--A stew of seafood with tomatoes, herbs, and red pepper. It's served with pasta, either on the side or right in the middle of the bowl with the cioppino itself. It's one of many dishes found in Mediterranean countries that belong in the same flavor family as bouillabaisse. Cioppino is typically found in American Italian restaurants. Under that name, it first appeared in San Francisco, where it's a popular local classic. However, similar dishes can be found under other names in Italy--notably cacciuco, from Livorno.
clafoutis [clah-foo-TEE], n.--In its original French form, this is a custard with fruits (classically, cherries) baked in and barely poking out of the top surface. It evolved into a custard in a pastry crust, then into a very eggy batter, still baked in a custard dish with the fruits floating at the top. The latter version is by far the most common form found in this country. It's a delicious light dessert, and is as good as a breakfast pastry as it is as the finish of a meal.
clove, n.--1. A spice with a powerful aroma and flavor, cloves are dried flower buds from a small tree in the myrtle family. Cloves were among the spices so much in demand in Europe in the Renaissance that it inspired the exploration of the world. It originally comes from the East Indies, and is still mostly grown there. Cloves are used both in sweet and savory cooking, ranging from apple pies to baked ham. An orange studded with cloves is part of the classic preparation of New Orleans-style cafe brulot. It's also one of the elements of Chinese five-spice powder. 2. One section of a head of garlic. Also known as a "toe."
coriander, n.--A member of the parsley family, whose leaves have a distinctly sharper flavor than other parsleys. References to coriander on menus or in spice jars almost always mean the seeds of that plant, which have a thin, aromatic sharpness that sets off many other flavors without jumping into the foreground, even if you use a lot of it. The plant's leaves themselves are most often called by their Spanish name, cilantro, which tastes very different from the seeds. Few people who hate cilantro (and there are many of those) find anything objectionable in coriander.
cowan [coe-WANH], n., Cajun French--The common name used in the Louisiana bayou country for the alligator snapping turtle. This is the prime species for all Cajun and Creole turtle dishes. It's one of the largest freshwater turtles in the world, living in streams and rivers throughout the Southeastern United States. With its hooked beak and strong jaws, it can devour almost anything its size, and has a predilection for fish. It lures them with a pink, worm-like appendage on its tongue, which it extends while lying on the bayou bottom with its mouth open, ready to bite down.
cracklings [CRACK-lins], n.--Pork fat and skin, cooked until crisp, eaten as a snack. There are several ways to make cracklings, the most delicate of which is to cut the fat off into slices about three-quarters of an inch wide by an inch and a half long, through the skin all the through the fat and a little bit into the lean meat, then to roast it in a pan until it's crisp. In Louisiana, it's more common for the skinless fat with a little bit of lean to be fried. The rendered fat is saved for cooking, and the cracklings are eaten as is. Cracklings are more common in the Cajun country and the rest of the South than in New Orleans proper. The only place that's made a name for them is Mother's, where they give them away to waiting customers. It's heart-stopping in its fat content, but sure tasty.
crawfish, n.--The preferred spelling and pronunciation for crayfish in Louisiana and the areas influenced by its cuisine. Also known as crawdads in other parts of America. It's a freshwater crustacean related to the saltwater lobster, and usually much smaller. Most edible crawfish live in or near wetlands. They're capable of walking about on land, but only if the water table is just below the surface. In the Cajun country of Louisiana, an entire culture exists about the cooking and eating of crawfish. The crawfish season in a good year runs from Thanksgiving to the Fourth of July, with a peak in April and May. Crawfish boiled in a spicy, herb-riddled pot of water is the most elemental crawfish dish, but hundreds of other dishes are made with the tails of the mudbugs (yet another nickname for these much-appreciated animals). The word derives from ecrevisse, the French name for them.
cream of tartar, n.--Potassium bitartrate, a natural byproduct of winemaking, cream of tartar is a mildly acidic powder whose uses are surprisingly varied. It is most frequently encoutered--although you might not be aware of its presence--mixed with other powders. It's found in some kinds of baking powder, to fire off the gas-producing effect of baking soda. It's in Sweet 'n' Low, to counteract the bitterness of saccharin. In its solo performances, cream of tartar added to egg whites makes them easier to turn into a thick foam for meringue. A paste of water and cream of tartar can polish metals. You may have encountered cream of tartar on the hoof. If you've ever seen what looks like glass chips in the bottom of a bottle of wine, or crystals on the underside of a cork, you've seen unpowdered cream of tartar. It's an element of the grape juice itself that sometimes precipitates, especially if the wine is kept chilled for a long time.
crepe, n., French--A thin pancake used to wrap other ingredients to make either sweet or savory dishes. Crepes are thin because they're made from a small amount of batter spread around the pan, and also because they don't rise the way the more familiar breakfast pancakes do. In fact, measures are taken to inhibit any rising. Crepe batter is usually made an hour or two in advance of cooking, so it releases any air it may contain before hitting the pan. Many kinds of pans are used to make crepes, and many techniques. In restaurants, sometimes a special scraper levels the batter. Some cooks use the bottom side of a skillet. And there is a crepe pan, which is entirely flat except for a shallow lip at the edge. To keep the crepe from sticking and then tearing when it's removed, the pan must be well seasoned and not washed after use. Crepes are most famously used for fancy desserts, but they can also be treated like pasta, sheets to make cannelloni, or French-style crepes folded over cheese, ham, or other savory ingredients.
crumble, n.--A pie topped with a layer of pastry crumbs and morsels instead of a solid or latticed pastry crust. The topping uses the same ingredients as a standard crust (flour, sugar, and butter), but omits the water, the repeated rolling, and the other troublesome parts of making pie crust. Instead, the ingredients are just stirred together until they get lumpy, and dumped on top of the pie to bake. Sometimes spices like cinnamon, cloves, orange peel, or other flavors are included.
cucuzza [cuh-KOOT-sah], n. A long, green squash originally grown in the Mediterranean lands, and especially popular in Sicily. They range in size from about a foot to a yard long, and about two to three inches in diameter, usually bigger at the end away from the stem. It has a thin green skin (edible) and a pale green interior. It has a texture and flavor reminiscent of those of the mirliton (chayote), and can be used for a lot of the same dishes, particularly stuffed with bread crumbs and garlic.. They're best when they're young and flawless. They're widely grown around New Orleans, always on fences, because of the length of the vegetable. More than a few jokes have been made about its shape, contributing to its popularity.
currant, n.--Often mentioned but rarely seen, in this country currants are raisins made from small, dark grapes native to the Mediterranean. Its other name--black Corinth grapes--tells of its original home. It also hints at why it's called a currant, although it's not a true currant (see black currant). Currants are most often seen as dark spots in scones. It's the flavor of the jelly used at Galatoire's to make crepes maison.
curry powder, n.--A blend of spices, typically including cumin, turmeric, coriander, mustard seeds, black pepper and cayenne. The best will also include cardamom and ground curry leaf. Pre-mixed curry powders are disdained by the most avid cooks of Indian and other Asian curries, who prefer making their own blends. And because many curry powders are made of low-grade ingredients, and sometimes ever cut with neutral ingredients like ground lentils and flour. A dash of it in soups or stews is not bad, but for any dish where the flavors of the curry spices will dominate, it's better to use the individual spices.
cuvée, [kuh-VAY] n., French.--A finished blend, most often of wine. The art of creating a cuvée reaches its height in Champagne, where not only are several grape varieties from many vineyards used to make most bubbly, but also wines of several vintages. Pulling all these together so as to keep a steady house style from year to year is one of the most challenging tasks in the entire winemaking world.
daube [DOBE], n.--Sliced meat, usually beef round, cooked slowly in its own juices to which seasoning vegetable and condiments (wine, Worcestershire, vinegar, or the like) have been added to sharpen the flavor. In classic French cookery (which the word first appeared, in the 1700s), daube was cooked in the oven in a terrine or a baking dish, till the liquids had mostly evaporated. Then it was sliced and eaten as it was. It could also be blended with seasoned gelatin, and served cold. Both those styles survive (although barely) in New Orleans. One dish is made by slicing the beef and simmering it in an Italian red sauce, then serving it with spaghetti. The cold, gelatinous version is called daube glace, and is a Christmastime classic. The latter is sort of the beef version of hogshead cheese, and eaten in much the same way. As is true of many French dishes, it's made with much more pepper here.
deglaze, v.--The cooking step of adding liquid to a skillet in which a meat or fish has been seared, and whisking the juices and bits left behind into the liquid to make the beginnings of a sauce. A wide range of liquids work for deglazing, but the most common are wine, stock, and just plain water. Fruit juices and spirits like brandy or whiskey also get wide use as deglazing mediums. Deglazing is a very effective way to start a sauce. Other ingredients (cream, mushrooms, herbs, onions, peppercorns, or whatever else sounds good) can be added after the deglazing is done. Meanwhile, the meat or fish continue cooking (or just stay warm) in the oven.
dressed, adj.--1. In poor boy sandwich-making, the inclusion of lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and mayonnaise. Also known as "all the way." The exact ingredients for rendering a sandwich dressed varies a little from shop to shop. 2. Referring to fish, this means gutted and scales removed, ready to be cooked. The head, tail, and fins are also usually off a dressed fish, but a "whole dressed" fish leaves those parts intact.
duxelles [doox-ELL], n., French.--A mixture of finely chopped mushrooms and a smaller amount of chopped onions or shallots, cooked in a bit of butter until softened. It comes out of the pan i a mass, and is most often used as a stuffing for a wide range of foods, from chicken to seafood. One of its most celebrated jobs is to surround the tenderloin of beef before the pastry is wrapped around it in the preparation of beef Wellington. The word always has the "s" at the end, even though it's most often used in the singular, as in "make a duxelles."
elephant garlic, n.--More closely related to the common leek than to what we think of as garlic, this bulb resembles a grossly oversized head of common garlic. Its flavor is somewhat garlicky, too, although it's a much milder flavor than that of standard garlic. The bulbs are also a little on the milky side. On the other hand, it can be used raw without imparting the overwhelming flavor that true garlic does. Elephant garlic enjoyed a wave of popularity in the 1990s, but that seems to be fading now.
escargot [ess-car-GO], n.--The French word for snail, and so the one most commonly used on menus. While escargots are considered by many to be an offbeat item eaten only by gourmets, they have in fact been eaten as least as early as Roman times. Not all snails are edible, though. The two most widely enjoyed are the petit gris snail (Helix aspersa is the species name), and the larger and slightly better gros blanc or "apple" snail (Helix pomatia). To get them ready for eating, they're first purged for a few days, removed from their shells, cleaned, then poached briefly. The classic preparation for escargots is bourguignonne--with garlic and herb butter. But many more recipes appear.
farina, n.--A generic word for flour, coming directly from Latin. Although the word is rarely used in recipes, it sometimes describes the presence of some kind of flour in a dish, when it might not necessarily be wheat flour. A food containing flour is said to be farinaceous. In some places, farina has come to mean potato flour. In Italy, there once was something called farina dolce. It was a flour made from chestnuts, used in very hard times. Not often seen even in Italy these days.
farro, n.--An early form of cultivated wheat grown in the Mediterranean since prehistoric times. It's also known as emmer or spelt, but some authorities claim that it's subtly different from both. It's cooked and eaten as whole grain, especially in Italy. A soup of farro is still popular there, thought of as very homely. In this country, farro is largely the province of health food stores and their customers.
fiddleheads, n., pl.--The young shoots of any of several species of ferns. The most common is the ostrich fern, usually found wild in New England. These new ferns are rolled up and resemble the scroll at the top of a violin, hence the name. Fiddleheads taste like a hybrid of green beans and spinach. While tasty enough, what little popularity they have owes to their unique visual appeal. They have a few problems: some species contain mild toxins, and there have even been reports of food poisoning traced back to fiddleheads that were undercooked. The advice of the authorities: cook them at least ten minutes. Usually they're boiled, but sometimes they're grilled or broiled. Even if some toxins remain, you'd have to eat a lot of fiddleheads for this to be a problem, and nobody eats a lot of fiddleheads.
filé, filé powder, gumbo filé, n.--Dried, powdered leaves of sassafras, used as a seasoning in gumbo. Sassafras is a small tree that grows throughout the South. Sassafras leaves have three different shapes, all growing together. The name comes from the French word for thread ("filament" comes from the same root). When you stir filé into gumbo, it merges into strings at first. Filé is most often used with chicken and sausage gumbos, but it might turn up in any variety. Some people add it to the pot while it's cooking. Others dust it over the surface of the gumbo at the table. The aroma is more assertive than the taste. There is evidence that filé may be carcinogenic, although the small amounts most people use are probably harmless. File is a great item to include in a basket of New Orleans food products sent to friends outside New Orleans. It's difficult to find anywhere else.
foie gras, n., French--It literally means “fat liver.” The liver is usually that of a duck in this country, although goose liver is preferred in France. In either case, the bird has been overfed in the last weeks of its life, which makes its liver grow very fat. This transforms its flavor. Foie gras goes back a long time; the Romans knew of it and loved it. French foie gras has long been made into pate and sold in this country in tinned form (not bad, at least the best-quality versions). The unprocessed liver itself, however, is what is usually referred to when you see foie gras on a menu. It's typically sliced into pieces weighing about a half-ounce, then seared in its own fat. Sometimes there's a sauce (it tends to be on the sweet side), but foie gras done that way is already uniquely delicious.
fool, n.--A dessert made of chopped or crushed fruit combined with whipped cream. The fruit can be either fresh or cooked, depending on the fruit involved. A mixture of fruits is common. The word is more often used in Great Britain, but is sometimes seen in America. It probably comes from the French word fouler, meaning "mash."
frangipane, n., French--A sweet tart filled with a custard flavored with crushed almonds and (most of the time) pistachios). The custard can be soft and creamy, or made with enough flour that it becomes firm and almost crunchy. It's named for the edible frangipani flower, but doesn't include it in the recipe.
fricandeau [free-can-DOE], n.--An obsolete term in most of the world of cooking, fricandeau still pops up every now and then in Cajun cooking, which is the last repository of many old French culinary ideas. It consists of slices of meat--usually a rather tough meat that needs to be pounded or even larded to make it tender--cooked in a thick sauce made primarily with vegetables. The sauce's contents contain enough solids to list the meat up off the plate, or weigh it down, depending on which side it's on. Some versions of grillades and grits are very close to the fricandeau idea. The name is French, and comes from the same root as fricassee--which is also fried or cooked in a skillet.
fricassee, n.--A light, creamy stew with meats or seafood and vegetables. Fricassee is a French term that's passed so deep into English that it's most often used in talking about American country cooking. Originally, a fricassee was similar to a pannee--slices of meat, usually on the light side (in both flavor and color, such as chicken or veal), fried in butter. That evolved into a dish in which the meat slices cooked with vegetables (mushrooms being most common) and a sauce that was t least a little bit creamy. In country cooking, the sauce tends to be along the lines of "cream gravy," made with milk and flour. Fricassees have become more common in recent times, with upscale restaurants making more refined sauces and using better meats and seafood.
frittata, n., Italian--A flat omelette, with the ingredients incorporated into the eggs rather than being enclosed by the finished omelette. The cooking of a frittata usually starts in a pan on top of the stove and finishes in the oven. It's not usually folded over after being cooked. The style began in Italy, but has spread into other cuisines. It is frequently made in small size as a garnish for dishes in high-end contemporary American restaurants.
fumet [foo-MET], n., French--A highly concentrated stock, almost always of fish. It's more of a cook's word than an eater's word, but it does turn up on menus now and then. A fumet is not often used as is, but is a major ingredient in making sauces for seafood dishes. As in lobster thermidor.
galantine, n.--A forcemeat or pate, usually of poultry, wrapped in the meat of the same kind of bird. It's tightly wrapped in cheesecloth and simmered in stock, then chilled. Classically, aspic made from the stock covers the galantine, but sometimes the aspic is just a garnish, or isn't there at all. That's full circle from the first galantines, which were more about the aspic than the meat. The pate in the center is usually studded with savory items like nuts or olives. Goose makes the most famous galantine, but other birds can be used. The classic sauce for a galantine is sauce Cumberland, a thick sauce made from red fruits and citrus. Galantines are forever being confused with ballottines. Sometimes you'll see non-words like "balantine" on menus. So, tomorrow, ballottine will be in this space.
gastrique, n.--A very thick sauce, usually used by the drop, made by reducing a combination of fruit juice, vinegar, wine, or other liquid until it thickens. Gastriques are typically used by chefs as much for visual reasons as for the flavors they impart. They're more punctuation than words, to use a metaphor. We are seeing the widespread use of gastriques in restaurants right now because they're hip, and because not many diners know what they are. Chefs love to mystify their customers that way. Gives them the upper hand they feel is important.
Genoa salami, n.--A medium-hard, cured, fermented sausage, two to three inches in diameter, made of finely-ground pork with a moderate amount of fat. It's seasoned with peppercorns, anise seeds, and has a distinctive and assertive aroma. It doesn't really come from Genoa, but is patterned against salamis made in that area, where pigs raised in the woods eat lots of acorns and chestnuts. The best salami from that area are dry-cured with crusts of salt and mold on the outside when mature. The kind used on muffulettas--the New Orleans Italian sandwich in which Genoa salami is essential--is more typically wet-cured with brine.
gluten, n.--a pair of proteins that occur in wheat (and a few other grains) which, when joined by having water added to flour made from the grain, become elastic. When you stir, stretch, and knead the dough that results, the gluten binds into a texture that captures bubbles from the leavening agent, and causes what you make from the dough to rise, and to get a distinctive "crumb." The formation of gluten strands is desirable in making most bread and pasta; less so in cakes and biscuits. That's why working the dough is necessary for the former, and to be avoided for the latter. Hard wheat tends to form a strong gluten; soft wheat a tender one.
gnocchi [NYAW-kee] n.--Small dumplings, similar to pasta but thicker and softer, usually made with a blend of wheat flour and potatoes. Gnocchi are typically about the size of the last segment of your little finger. After being made, they're rolled across a form (a dinner fork works perfectly) that gives it a ribbed look. They're boiled and served with the same sauces used with standard pasta, as well as with some distinctive sauces. Brown butter with sage and cream sauces with truffles are two gnocchi variations that turn up in upscale restaurants. Because they're filling and often rich, gnocchi are more often served as a preliminary course in a meal instead of as an entree.
gulyas [GOOL-yash], n. Hungarian--A stew of beef or (more traditionally) lamb that's simpler than most stews, but more delicious than its English name ("goulash") makes it sounds. It's basically just the meat and the onions, with a good deal of paprika added after the concoction cooks down enough to thicken. Potatoes are sometimes included. It is widely admired not only in Hungary but most of Eastern Europe. Every German chef we've ever known winds up putting gulyas on his menu sooner or later. The paprika--another underrated food item--makes the difference.
grillades [GREE-yahdz], n.--This French word means "a piece of grilled food," usually referring to meat. In New Orleans, it means veal or calf round cooked and served with a Creole sauce of tomatoes, bell peppers, onions and celery, usually beefed up (literally) with the juices and stock from cooking the meat slowly for an extended time. The classic partner for grillades made that way is grits, and the resulting dish is more often served as a breakfast or brunch item than at any other time.
hanger steak, n.--A heart-shaped cut of beef taken from behind the ribs, where it literally hangs, attached to no bones. Its purpose is to palpate the pancreas. Its French name, which shows up n some menus, is onglet. It is unusual in being symmetrical with respect to a vertical line through the steak. There's only one hanger steak, weighing a generous pound or so, in each cow. It has been called a "butcher's cut," because its uniqueness and goodness caused butchers to saved it for themselves. Hanger steak is a bit chewy, with a texture similar to that of flank. It's usually pre-sliced in the kitchen, across the grain, before it enters the dining room. The hanger steak has a distinctive flavor, reminiscent of that of an aged steak. They're usually grilled whole over a very hot fire, and cooked rare or medium rare.
hollandaise, n.--One of the French "mother" sauces from which many other sauces are built, hollandaise stands on its own as well. It's a thick, pale-yellow emulsion of beaten eggs and butter, flavored with lemon juice or vinegar and a pinch of cayenne. The modern form of hollandaise seems only to have come together in the mid-1800s, which is recent by French standards. It got its name from its use in dishes that were characterized as Dutch. Hollandaise is the bicycle of sauces: tricky to master, but once you get the technique you never forget. Classically, the eggs are beaten with the lemon juice in a bowl over gentle heat, which cooks them very lightly and causes them to thicken. Whole butter--softened but not melted--is whisked into the eggs, about two-thirds of a stick to an egg yolk. Hollandaise is used on many dishes, most famously poached eggs. That's odd, really: it amounts to eggs on eggs. It may reach its peak of usefulness as a sauce for vegetables, notably asparagus and broccoli.
hominy, n.--Dried corn kernels, treated with a mild lye solution to remove the hulls and germ to avoid sprouting. The name comes from a Native American language, logically enough, since they are the ones who developed the process, using hot water and ash to do the job. Hominy is the same thing as posole, the name more common in the Southwest. When ground, hominy becomes the more familiar grits so commonly eaten with breakfast in the South. That's something like Italian polenta. You can buy whole hominy kernels canned or in bags, but it's not much eaten in that form.
hoppin' john, n.--A dish made of blackeye peas and rice, with sausage or pork cooked in with the beans. It's most popular in the Low Country of North Carolina, but eaten throughout the South, even in places that don't use that name for the dish. As we don't, very much, here in New Orleans.
huckleberry, n.--A close relative of the blueberry, huckleberries are typically smaller, tarter, and have bigger seeds than their more celebrated cousins. Several species grow throughout North America, which is where the entire family originated. Roughly speaking, the father north they grow, the bigger and sweeter they get, and the later they ripen. The best are found in Alaska in August. The huckleberries in Louisiana are very small and ripen in April. (I have dozens of huckleberry bushes in the woods around my house.) Almost all are picked in the wild, where they're also appreciated by animals from birds to bears. Gather enough of them and you can make a good pie. The name is a corruption of "hurtleberry," a word that began to be forgotten after Mark Twain published Huckleberry Finn.
huitlacoche, n., Spanish--The Mexican name for corn smut, a fungust that grows into a soft, gray mass around growing corncobs. To add one more distasteful note, the word means "raven poop." Despite the sound of all this, huitlacoche is considered a delicacy in Mexico, and has been called "Mexican truffles." It tastes and feels like mushrooms. Chefs who try to stay on the cutting edge--particularly if their menus have a hispanic tone--work huitlacoche into their dishes, and brag about it. All-huitlacoche dinners have been staged. This is not mere silliness, because the stuff actually does taste good. On the other hand, its exotic backstory certainly provides most of the appeal for gourmets.
Jerusalem artichoke, n.--Neither from Jerusalem nor a member of the artichoke family, this is the edible, tuberous roots of a variety of sunflower. Hence it's other name, sunchoke. It does taste somewhat like an artichoke, particularly the artichoke bottom, whose texture it also resembles. The "Jerusalem" part of the name seems to come from the Italian name for sunflowers, girasole. The vegetable is native to North America, and spread to Europe in the 1600s. It was popular for awhile, but its natural sweetness caused it to be treated more or less the way we eat sweet potatoes. The sweetness comes from a natural sugar which, like many plant sugars, is indigestible and ferments. Eating a large portion of Jerusalem artichokes can create gas pains. However, a little bit of it is harmless. We mostly find it boiled a little bit and used as part of a salad or vegetable side dish.
juicy lucy, n.--A variation on the cheeseburger in which the cheese is enclosed inside the hamburger patty before grilling. It's popular in the Minneapolis area. Matt's Bar, one of the claimants to have invented it, spells it "jucy lucy."
jumbo lump crabmeat, n.--The two muscles of the crab, inside its body at its widest part, that move the lower portion of the claw. Because that's the crab's largest appendage, this muscle is the largest in the crab. Jumbo lump is the most desirable and expensive part of the largest crabs, and is carefully picked to keep it whole. By its nature in includes a thin, translucent piece of shell-like material, the absence of which means that the crab was over-picked. Jumbo lump is white and firm. It's the essential ingredient for the best quality crab cakes, crabmeat ravigote, and crab salads. Just plain lump crabmeat is also white and firm, but smaller.
kalua pig, n., Hawaiian--A pork roast--usually a pork shoulder--slowly cooked in a pit dug into the ground called an imu. The ultimate imu is a natural depression in lava rock, which holds and concentrates the heat, but slowly. Kalua pig is the Hawaiian equivalent of barbecue, and is much like the kind you find in the Carolinas and in Cajun country. It's not particularly spicy itself, but often spicy sauces are served with it.
lapsang souchong, n., Chinese--One of the most distinctive of all tea varieties, lapsang souchong is dried over a smoky, resinous fire. It picks up the smoky flavor. Because of this, some people who drink it for the first time are taken aback. Its popularity is increasing, however. So much so that the place where it was originally made--the Wuyi region in Fukien--can't keep up with the demand. The authentic lapsang souchong tea is becoming more expensive as a result. It's always seemed to us to be the perfect iced tea with barbecue.
licorice, n., adj.--The root of the glycyrrhiza glabra plant, whose first name literally means "sweet root." The licorice root does, in fact, contain a compound whose sweetness is some fifty times sweeter than that of sugar. But other flavor compounds in the root have a higher profile. The unique flavor of licorice--similar to that of anise, but different, too--has been used in cooking for millennia. Licorice also has a long history as a medicine. It soothes the throat and reduces coughing, among many other benefits. Although licorice is a common flavor in candies and other foods, it almost always comes from artificial sources. True licorice is rarely seen outside of health food stores and the very top gourmet restaurants.
lychee [LEE-chee], n.--A sweet fruit about an inch in diameter, grown and much liked in China for at least two thousand years. It can be found fresh as well as canned. The latter is found in most Chinese restaurants as a dessert. It has a flavor somewhere between that of a pear and a sweet grape. The lychee is the fruit of an evergreen tree native to the southern, semi-tropical parts of China where part of the year is dry. (They're grown in Florida in this country.) Lychees have rough red skins that turn brown shortly after being picked. Although it's often called "lychee nut," it's not a nut, although it does have an inedible seed that might suggest that.
macadamia, n.--The kernel of the seed of a tree cultivated in many tropical parts of the world--notably Hawaii, Sulawesi, and Australia. Macadamias are the only major food crop native to Australia that is widely exported. The macadamia nut is pale yellow and round after being extracted from a hard-to-open shell (which is why you probably have never seen them in their shells. They contain a large amount of Omega-7 oils, which results not only in a rich flavor, but also makes it useful for making cosmetics. Macadamias are perceived as having a higher gourmet quotient than most nuts, even thought their flavor is rather subtle. Macadamias are named for John Macadam, a friend of the British botanist who first described the tree.
mace, n.--A lacy covering over a nutmeg, which in turn is the nut of a fruit growing on a tree in the East Indies. When the fruit is freshly picked, the mace looks like bright red wax poured over the nutmeg. After it's dried, it turns light brown. Mace has a flavor somewhat similar to that of nutmeg, but with more aroma and a less assertive flavor--often described as being a combination of cinnamon and pepper. Its most common use is as a spice in apple pies.
mahi-mahi, n.--The Hawaiian name for a fish found in warm seas worldwide. It's also known as dorado and dolphinfish. It does vaguely resemble the mammalian dolphin, but is a true fish. They grow quickly to sizes of two to five feet long, and so represent a sustainable food fish species. It's a very good fish for grilling, needing just basic seasoning and a light sauce, if any. Mahi-mahi has an iridescent skin and light grey flesh. It's a little chewier than most fish, especially when it isn't very fresh, and it doesn't freeze well.
malacia [muh-LAY-she-uh], n. A strong desire to eat spicy, peppery food. It comes from a Greek word that means "softening," and in medicine it means just that (about cartilage, mostly). How it got this other meaning is unclear. But it's a good word, isn't it? I know I've felt malacia at times.
marinara, n. or adj.--A sauce made of tomatoes, onions, olive oil, and herbs, cooked simply and quickly. This is as opposed to a bolognese sauce or ragu, which have meat in them. Although it's sometimes applied to sauces that sit on the stove for many hours, the name itself--a reference to sailors, who require simplicity in their cooking--really implies a sauce that's on and off the stove in fifteen or twenty minutes. A New Orleans "red gravy," then, isn't exactly a marinara. But close enough.
marrow, n.--The soft interior of large bones, marrow makes blood cells for the animal. Its most frequent appearances on the table are in dishes using the foreshanks of veal calves, with osso buco being the most famous of these. Marrow is a pale ivory color, and somewhat gelatinous. It's retrieved by using an oyster fork or (in really fancy places) a small spoon made specifically for the purpose. It has an extraordinarily rich flavor, from high components of fat and cholesterol. Marrow is one of the distinctive ingredients in very old versions of marchand de vin sauce, a practice that has become extinct locally.
meringue [meh-RANG], n.--A baked foam of sweetened egg whites. Depending on the recipe, the baking can give the meringue a lightly browned exterior, leaving the inside soft and foamy. Or, with slow, low baking, it can dry the foam out with little or no browning, such that it becomes a very light cookie-like confection. A good example of the uses of meringue can be seen at Antoine's, where they brown a layer of it around a block of ice cream for baked Alaska, or make the dried, crisp meringue as a base for meringue glacee and other desserts. Meringue is also the topping for pies and pastries. My mother used it to top bread pudding, adding vanilla and browning it a bit in the oven before serving.
mesclun, n.--A mixture of young greens, typically with different colors, textures, and flavors, used as a salad. Sometimes herbs and even edible flowers turn up. The "spring mix" bagged salads you see in supermarkets qualify as mesclun salads. The word "mesclun" is widely misspelled on menus, often coming out as "mesculin" or something similar. This suggests that the menu writer knows more about hallucinogenic extracts of peyote than about salads.
mille-feuille, n., French [meel FUH-yeh].--The name literally means "a thousand leaves," and that is actually an understatement. A mille-feuille pastry is usually made of several sheets of puff pastry, each of which contains at least 512 sheets, from having been folded over and rolled out nine or so times. After baking, the leaves of pastry become flaky and pull apart a bit to display just how many of them there are. The most famous mille-feuille has a name of its own: the Napoleon pastry. But these days more than a few chefs are making all sorts of dessert in the mille-feuille style, as well as some savory dishes. Louis XVI, for example, used to make a mille-feuille filled with crawfish and crabmeat.
mirepoix, n., French--A mixture of finely diced onions, carrots, and celery, added to stocks and roasting meat juices in the making of certain sauces, especially brown sauces for meats. After cooking with the other ingredients for awhile, the vegetables almost melt into the liquid part of the sauce ingredients, and as they do they lend flavor and (from the carrots) color. In meat sauces, sometimes cured ham or bacon are added.
mortadella, n.--A large sausage, usually cut into thin slices, made of finely ground pork with islands of pork fat. It's a specialty of Bologna, Italy. The cold cut we called bologna (baloney!) in America is an adaptation of mortadella, but made with as much beef as pork and without the fat islands. The name comes from the Italian mortaio, meaning mortar--the tool originally used to crush the meat into the fine texture for which mortadella is known. In New Orleans, mortadella is best known as one of the three meats (the others are salami and ham) used to make a muffuletta sandwich. Not all makers of muffulettas include the mortadella, however.
mousseline, n., adj., French--A sauce with a light texture derived by folding whipped cream, or (less commonly) beaten egg whites into another sauce. The most familiar of these is mousseline of hollandaise, often referred to as simply "mousseline." But you can also have mousselines of mayonnaise or any other sauce that will blend smoothly with the whipped cream.
nopales, [noh-PAH-less] n.--The pads of pricklypear cactus, used in Mexican cookery as a vegetable. They taste vaguely like eggplant, with a hint of mirliton. They can be cooked or pickled. They'd be more popular if they were easier to deal with. The hard part is removing the spines. The big ones are easy--it's the millions of little, hairlike spines with hooks on the ends that make you yowl with pain. Maybe a spineless variety needs to be developed. You sometimes see these as nopalitos, indicating that the pads are young, small, and tender.
Nutella, n.--The brand name for a blend of chocolate and finely ground hazelnuts, sold in a jar. It has the texture of peanut butter, and is spread in much the same way, although not in the same places. Nutella is incredibly popular in Europe. Here, it turns up as an ingredient in pastries and dessert by restaurant chefs. Those who like it seem to be mad about it.
orange flower water, n.--The water portion of a distillate made from water simmered with bitter orange flowers. An oil is also created this way, used as an element of perfume. It has been made in the Middle East for a long time, and is still used in a number of Middle Eastern desserts. Sometimes it's sprinkled into salads and even some soups and stews, sparingly. Its flavor is very subtle and pleasant. In New Orleans, orange flower water is an ingredient in the Ramos gin fizz cocktail.
orgeat, n.--A sweet, almond-and-citrus-flavored syrup used mostly as a cocktail ingredient, notably for the absinthe suisesse. Orgeat started out as a beverage made from barley, in the same family of things called tisanes. Later, a vogue began for flavoring it with almonds, and over time the barley disappeared and the dominant flavor was that of the nuts. Lemon and orange juices, and later orange flower water, entered the mix. After orgeat fell out of favor as a drink unto itself, its use as a flavoring for other drinks caused it to evolve into the syrup that it is now. It's a little hard to find, even in well-stocked liquor stores. Absinthe suisesse itself is sold in relatively few restaurants. All the Brennan restaurants have it, because it's a classic brunch cocktail.
oxtail, n.--This is literally the tail of a cow. It has a bone in the center at the top end, but this tapers off to a cartilaginous appendage as it heads to the rear. It's surrounded by a layer of meat which gets progressively thinner. As a muscle, its only job is to wag the tail. So it's reasonably tender. The great use for oxtails in in making beef stock for soup. The cartilage gives up a lot of gelatin, which adds a marvelous texture to a soup. (There's not better beginning for a French onion soup.) The meat part is very tender and tasty. Because its texture is cordlike, the meat can be pulled apart into strings and bundled together for a nice presentation. In the store, it's usually cut into inch-thick (actually, inch-long) segments.
pakora, n.--Bite-size vegetables seasoned with spices, coated with a light batter (usually just flour and water) and deep-fried. Pakoras are street snacks in India, but they have become staples on Indian menus everywhere. Although most involve vegetables, pakoras can also be made from fish or chicken.
pancetta, n., Italian--A section of pork belly with about equal amounts of fat and lean, dry-cured with salt and herbs for a few months. It's much like bacon, except that pancetta is not usually smoked. Most commercially available pancetta is cut into thinner slabs than is typical for bacon and then rolled up. Its most familiar use in this country is in the recipe for spaghetti carbonara. But it's also employed in many other recipes--not all of them Italian--when the fat, meaty saltiness of cured pork is wanted, but not the smoky flavor of standard bacon.
partridge, n.--A smallish game bird native to Europe and West and Central Asia, much admired for its flavorful light-colored meat. Partridges are usually about a foot long and weigh about three-fourths of a pound. The classical preparation is to hang them up for a day or two, then to roast them simply. The best ones are young; the older ones as it true for most birds, are used for dishes like partridge and cabbage stew in France. You will not likely find partridges on these shore, in or out of a pear tree.
pasta cu li sardi, n., Italian. Also pasta con sardi.--The traditional dish served on St. Joseph's Day in Sicily, and anywhere else with a Sicilian heritage. The sardi are Mediterranean sardines, five or six inches long, broiled or fried, served whole and almost entirely edible. (Some people even eat the heads.) These accompany pasta tossed with a tomato sauce. The traditional pasta used is bucatini or perciatelli, two names for a thick string pasta with a small hole running through it. The pasta is topped not with cheese but bread crumbs, which recalls not only the privations of Lent, but also the sawdust of Joseph's carpentry. Since St. Joseph's Day is always in Lent, it's a meatless dish.
pastrami, n.--Cured, brined beef, usually brisket, which has been peppered and cold-smoked. Its history can be traced back to Turkey, Armenia, and the Balkans, where the technique was originally a method of preservation. Meats other than beef were (and probably still are) prepared the same way there. Originally, the meat was air-dried, in the same way that prosciutto is, but not as long. The pastrami you find in delis has evolved from that to become a lightly smoked, tender sliced meat with a bit of fat around the edges, a reddened brown color, and a distinct tang of salt and peppery spices. It's usually steamed before it's served, and usually winds up on a sandwich. Where, as is true of all deli meats, the thinner the slices the better.
pepper, n.--The most widely-used seasoning from the plant kingdom, pepper is the fermented and dried berries of the piper nigrum tree, usually used in ground form. While the word "pepper" is also applied to other fruits that give a hot flavor sensation (most notably members of the capsicum family), the only true pepper is piper nigrum. A native of India, it has been imported and appreciated since ancient times, and was the subject of a great deal of contentious trade. Pepper berries are picked when they just begin to ripen and turn red. They ferment in a pile for three or four days, then are spread out to dry. Black pepper comes from the fully-dried berries. White pepper is made by washing the skins off the black peppercorns, resulting in a milder flavor. Green peppercorns are the same berries picked before they ripen, and either dried or pickled. They too are milder than black peppercorns.
pesto, n., Italian--An uncooked sauce made--in its classic Genoan form--from garlic, basil, Parmigiana cheese, olive oil, and pine nuts. The basil is what stands out most, followed by the garlic. It gets its name from its original method of preparation, involving a mortar and pestle to grind the ingredients into a paste, and then to work the olive oil into it. In recent times, the word's definition has grown to allow other ingredients. The most notable change is the use of butter in place of some of the olive oil. (In some cases, all of it.) Pesto can be used as a sauce for pasta or gnocchi, or for seafood.
piccata, adj.--A pan-seared preparation of thin slices of veal, chicken, or other protein, served with a pan sauce of butter or olive oil with white wine and lemon juice. An almost universally-served dish in American Italian restaurants. Very similar to veal francesca. The word "piccata" is a reference to the old practice of jabbing the meat to work fat into it, to tenderize the often-tough veal.
pil-pil, n. Also piri-piri, particularly in places with a Portuguese heritage. A dish, usually involving shrimp or fish cooked in olive oil with chile peppers. It it usually quite hot to the taste, though not always. Pil-pil seems to be a dish that moved around the world a lot. Nobody's quite sure which cuisine created it. My theory is that it's a creole (in the generic sense) idea. It certainly has roots in the French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa, from which versions went back to the mother country for further evolution. The Basques also claim it. The essential chile peppers give it an American origin, too.
plantain, n.--Any of the many edible varieties of banana that do not become sweet enough to eat raw. Cooked, their starchy component makes for a good side vegetable. Plantains are most commonly found in Hispanic cooking in this country, although they are widespread around the world. In Africa, plantains are usually processed into a mash (from it comes a mashed-potato-looking dish called foo-foo) or a near-flour, which can be used for making flat cakes and dumplings. The funny thing about plantains is that, even though they're so closely related to bananas that you could say they are bananas, they offer almost none of the distinctive flavor of a banana.
poi, n. Hawaiian--A soft, starchy side dish made mostly of cooked, mashed taro root. Taro has been raised as a food crop in Hawaii for hundreds of years. Fields of the plants, whose leaves look like small elephant ears, are still grown widely throughout the islands. Poi, however, is in decline even among Hawaiian natives, who serve it mostly as a baby food and as an essential at luaus.
polenta, n.--To make a long story short, polenta is Italian grits, with only a small difference. Polenta is made from pure cornmeal, while grits are made from corn hominy (dried corn treated with alkali to remove the hulls and germ). Polenta is a nearly universal side dish in northern Italy, present on any entree plate with meat or poultry. It's served in a wide range of textures, from flowing (like grits) to so stiff that it can be cut into wedges and grilled. In America, chefs like to add other ingredients, but the just-plain variety is most common in Italy. The preparation of polenta is simple: you pour cornmeal into a saucepan with twice as much water, and cook it over low heat, stirring now and then, until it thickens to the point that it pulls away from the sides of the saucepan and the spoon stands up.
pomelo, n.--Also spelled pummelo. The largest of citrus fruits, native to Southeast Asia (probably what is now Malayasia and Indonesia). It looks like an oversized grapefruit, with juicy segments that seem too small for the thick, soft skin that covers them. They taste bitter, sweet, and sour, in about that order. Most people who first encounter a pomelo suspect that it's some weird hybrid of the grapefruit. In fact, it's the other way around--the grapefruit was developed from the pomelo. A trademarked variation of the pomelo called Ugli fruit shows up now and then to capture your attention, but probably not your loyalty.
pope's (or parson's or bishop's) nose, n.--Also known as the bishop's hat, particularly in mostly-Catholic communities. This is the appendage of meat at the rear end of a turkey or chicken that holds the tail feathers. It is indeed shaped like a nose or a a bishop's hat. It's even more prominent in ducks and geese, although those don't taste as good. In a turkey or chicken, the muscles involved don't do much work, and so are tenderer. In every family, there's someone who particularly likes this piece. He or she rarely has much competition for it, because of it's well-known position in the rear of the bird. But there's nothing wrong with it, and combined with a knot of fatty meat right in front of it, it is one of a poultry delicacy.
popover, n.--A savory, eggy, buttery pastry made in muffin tins with a batter somewhat similar to that used for making pancakes. Butter is heated in the tins and then the batter is poured in. After baking in a very hot oven for a few minutes, the batter rises well above the top of the pan and swells up, ultimately "popping over" and falling inward. What comes out is usually hollow in the center, with most of its bulk near the top. They're at their best (and irresistibly light) right out of the oven. Popovers are similar to Yorkshire pudding, commonly served with prime rib. The difference is that the latter is made with roast beef fat and drippings instead of the butter.
potato starch, n.--A fine powder made by extracting "starch milk" from the pulp of potatoes, then drying it. It has the texture of cornstarch, and is used for many of the same purposes--most of which involve thickening a sauce or a soup. Potato starch has the advantage of being gluten-free, and so has appeal to those who have a wheat allergy. It's different from potato flour, which also includes potato fiber.
pot-au-feu [poe-tuh-FUH], n.--French vegetable-beef stew-soup, to put it simply. However, its preparation is so much a part of French country cooking that it's considered nearly sacred. The expression means "pot on the fire," and into that pot goes all the trimmings from the meats being used for other purposes, along with vegetables and vegetable scraps. All of this cooks together, slowly, for hours and hours (and perhaps even days, as its contents are renewed with new scraps). The result is a flavorful broth with a lot of gelatin, a heart-warming dish in the winter particularly. For a long time local food writer Miriam Guidroz had a column in the Times-Picayune called "Pot-au-Feu."
pound cake, n.--A cake whose name gives the recipe. It's classically made with a pound each of butter, flour, eggs (about six) and sugar. That makes a cake bigger than most people think of as a pound cake, but it's the classic. The eggs are creamed into the butter first, followed by the eggs and then the flour. There's usually vanilla in there, too. Beyond that, all sorts of other things make their way into the cake, notably sour fruits like orange and cherries. Pound cakes are as often used as the basis for a more complicated confection (baked Alaska comes to mind), but everybody seems to like it for its own merits.
poussin, n., French--A very young chicken, weighing about a pound and a half. It's the size of a Cornish game hen, which is often served in restaurants as a poussin. Most of them are males; those are also known as coquelets, although that word isn't often seen in American menus. A poussin is usually served whole, or cut in half from end to end. Its flavor is very subtle. Larousse Gastronomique goes so far as to call it "nearly flavorless." This means that the sauce and garnishes are essential. They often include bacon or black pepper. These small chickens are also commonly stuffed with a rich paté.
prawn, n.--Either a very large shrimp or a very small shrimp. While some restaurants make a distinction between prawns and shrimp, that distinction varies greatly from restaurant to restaurant, and so is meaningless. Biologically, prawns are in a different suborder than shrimp, but strict biology doesn't appear on menus. In any case, both shrimp and prawns are decapods, and look and taste much the same.
profiterole, n.--A sweet pastry about the size of a golf ball, split and filled with ice cream or whipped cream, and often topped with chocolate sauce. The pastry is made with choux dough, the same stuff used to make cream puffs and croquembouche. Profiteroles appear on the dessert menus of many restaurants, although they're now considered retro by most pastry chefs. The name literally means "a little profit," but it's unclear whether this is a reward for the eater or the markup for the restaurateur who serves it.
pulse, n.--A generic word for beans and peas. They're seeds that form inside a pod. Each seed has a skin, and splits into two parts. The word legume is a more common synonym. Pulses range from very small (like lentils) to very large (lima beans). They're found all over the world, although the varieties from the New World are significantly different from those of the Old World. The former include red beans, pinto beans, and limas; the latter include green peas, chickpeas, and lentils. They're highly nutritious, easy to grow, and easily dried for long storage. For all those reasons, they have been part of the human diet since prehistoric times.
quenelle [keh-NEL], n.--Fish or shellfish pureed with cream, then formed into a soft, oval-shaped dumpling by poaching. Quenelles can also be made with poultry. The classic fish for quenelles is pike, but almost any fish will work. Quenelles are most often served with a rather rich sauce of cream and reduced stock, or in a bisque. They were much more common when more French chefs were at work cooking classical dishes. The best ever were the redfish quenelles with crawfish sauce Nantua at Christian's, a dish that should be revived.
raclette, n.--This is the name of a cheese made in Switzerland, as well as a method of serving it (or other cheeses). The name means "scraped," and that tell the story. The small wheel of cheese is place in a spot where a candle or even a wood fire makes the cheese begin to melt. You then scrape it off and spread it on bread or right onto a plate, and eat it warm. Sometimes it's served with potatoes or relishes, and you combine all the elements. So it's sort of a halfway fondue. I don't think anyone has ever served it in New Orleans, but you may well find it in places where a roaring fireplace seems right.
radiatore, [rah-di-ah-TOR-eh] n., adj. The newest non-novelty pasta shape, this is an extruded strip of pasta about half and inch wide and an in long, curled onto itself, with short, wavy fins on the outward side. The name notes its resemblance to the fins in an automobile radiator. It came onto the scene about fifteen years ago, to great excitement. It's a great shape for picking up lots of sauce. A picture of it is here.
radicchio [rah-DEE-kee-oh], n.--A thick, firm, purple-red leaf with white veins. It grows in a loose bunch, used for salads. It's a member of the chicory family, and so has a bitter flavor that adds interest to a salad that includes it. It's usually served raw, but it can be grilled or lightly poached and used as a side dish. It's most often seen in Italian restaurants, but it turning up in many bagged salad mixes.
ramp, n.--A wild leek, a little bigger than a scallion. They appear during April and May in the Appalachian region and beyond. Instead of the hollow, straw-like leaves of green onions, ramps have flattened, wide leaves. The name may come from the fact that the British wild onions they resemble (and were named for) first appear when the sun is in Aries, the Ram. Some people in the mountains call them "rampscallions." In recent years ramps became a darling of gourmet chefs, who like to grill them or use them in place of other onions.
rauchfleisch, n., German--Dry-cured beef, made in much the same way as prosciutto. It's covered with salt and fat, smoked, and left to dry for months, then thinly sliced and served as an appetizer. It appears to have come from the part of Romania called Bessarabia, which had Russian, Turkish, and German influences. Rauchfleisch is not common, but it is very good, with an aged-beef flavor over a light smoky taste.
razor clam, n.--This is a well-named bivalve. It has a long body with a muscular foot, all not quite stuffed into an equally long, thin shell. It's named not only for this long shape, but for the fact that the shell can indeed be sharp enough to cut like a razor. They are edible and quite good, but are hard to market because they can't close their shells the way clams, oysters, and mussels can. The foot is rather tough, but the rest of the animal is soft and good. It grows in the North Atlantic along both American and European coasts.
rillettes [ree-YET], n.--An item from the broad French charcuterie category of meat preparation, a rillettes (the word has an "s" in both singular and plural forms) is traditionally made from pork from old sows. That was tough enough that it needed much pounding with lard to make it tender. What came out was a stringy compound with enough fat and seasoning that one could actually like it. As they do, very much, in the area around Tours and Anjou. Rillettes are less popular in this country, where most people consider it just another form of paté. but chefs have put forth a great effort in recent years to popularize it by using the technique with rabbit, duck, and other candidates. I would say that they don't quite have it down yet.
rissole [ree-SOLE], n.--A ball of meat, poultry, fish, or even vegetables, held together with something like egg or bechamel, covered with a crust of pastry or breadcrumbs, then fried. The word has become rather generic, and around New Orleans it's not much used, there being other words ("croquette" or just "ball" among them) to describe this sort of thing. Small crabcakes, meat pies, boudin balls, and the like could be considered rissoles. The only reason I bring it up is that I've seen it on local menus twice in the last month or so. Didn't want a chef to fool you.
rock salt, n.--Salt mined directly from underground and broken into the size of peas. This contrasts with table salt and other kinds of salt used for cooking, most of which is made by evaporating brine solutions until the salt crystallizes out. While rock salt may well be edible, its role in food preparation is usually subsidiary. It's used to lower the temperature of ice water. It's also common in the serving of baked oysters on the shells (such as oysters Rockefeller). Set in a pan of rock salt, oysters won't wobble and slide all over the plate.
romesco, n.--A Spanish sauce, usually served at room temperature, made of roasted tomatoes, garlic, almonds, red peppers (both sweet and hot, although rarely much of the latter), vinegar, and bread. All of this is pureed into a paste that has about the consistency of ketchup, but a much different flavor. There are quite a few variations on the recipe. It's popularly served with grilled or fried fish, but it's pretty good with all sorts of other foods.
rosemary, n.--A wild, evergreen herb from the Mediterranean countries, used in cooking food as well as in medicine since ancient times. It has thin, almost needlelike leaves about three-quarters of an inch long. It has the resinous qualities of a desert plant, and its aroma persists long after it's dried. Rosemary branches are most often used in roasting poultry and meats, particularly chicken and lamb. Once you get a rosemary plant started, it grows into a sizeable bush even without much care. In the late winter, it flowers with small blue-purple blossoms. When rosemary is part of a dish, you know it by the aroma alone.
roux [ROO], n., French, singular and plural--A roux is flour browned to some degree, used as a thickener and flavor extender in sauces and soups. In Louisiana, roux plays a much larger role than it does in its homeland of France, where chefs know and respect roux but don't use it as much as we do. The Louisiana technique of making roux calls for blending fat (of almost any kind) and flour, and cooking it in a saucepan until the desired degree of browning is achieved. The typical blend is equal amounts of fat and flour. In France, roux is often made dry, in the oven--something not often done in Louisiana, although it works. A short book could be written on the techniques of using and making roux, and each cook seems to have his or her own tricks for making it. In any case, it's one of the hallmarks of Creole and Cajun cookery.
rutabagas, n.--A large variety of turnip, grown mostly in colder parts of the world. Its name evolved from Swedish words meaning something like "root sweet potato." (Of course, sweet potatoes are also roots.) That makes reference to its yellow-orange color as well as its mild, starchy flavor and texture. Rutabagas are widely perceived with suspicion, but they shouldn't be. It can be cooked and served in most of the ways potatoes are. Plainly boiled, sliced, and buttered. they're delicious. They also make an excellent gratin. Rutabagas are fall vegetables, familiar at the holiday table.
saddle, n.--A cut of meat coming from behind the end of the rib roast and extending back, on both sides of the backbone. A saddle can be cut from mammals as small as a rabbit to as large as a cow. The saddle usually includes both tenderloins, and sometimes part or all of the sirloin. In smaller animals, it includes everything to the tail. A saddle can be cooked and carved whole for a grand presentation at a large banquet. A saddle of beef or venison is also known (especially in England) as a baron.
saffron, n. Part of the dried stigmas of the crocus flower, used as an aromatic spice that lends a yellow-orange color to foods. It's most famously used in bouillabaisse (and all the other soup-stews like it), as well in paella. Its use as a spice originated in ancient Persia, but it reached its full expression in Kashmir. The most famous and expensive saffron now comes from Spain. It takes an acre of crocuses--700,000 flowers--to make ten pounds of saffron. The stigmas must be removed by hand. So it's expensive--running neck-and-neck with white truffles for the distinction of being the most expensive food ingredient in the world. The best saffron comes in threads an inch long. Cheaper saffron can be bought, particularly in open markets in the Middle East, but its flavor and coloring properties are much inferior.
salade tiède, n., French--A salad in which some of the ingredients are served warm, particularly when the green part of the salad is crisp and cool. The warm element can range from a protein like duck breast, cheese, or fried shellfish to a warm dressing. Salades tièdes are as often served as main courses as subsidiary courses. It's the modern cousin of the salade fatiguee, in which the green are deliberately wilted by the addition of a warm dressing
salamander, n.--A small broiler, usually mounted at eye level above the stoves in a restaurant kitchen, used to put a final glaze or crust on a dish. The original salamanders were large pucks of cast iron on the ends of poker-like handles. These were set into a fire until the became red-hot, then held over the gratin dish until the top browned or bubbled. The name comes from the myth that the amphibian of the same name could walk through fire unharmed. "Run this under the salamander" is a well-known command in a restaurant kitchen.
sambal, n.--Originally from Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, sambals are roughly-pureed combinations of hot chile peppers, lemon or lime juice, vinegar, and salt. A wide range of other ingredients can be included in the mixture, but what results is a thick, often chunky version of hot sauce, used as a condiment. In its native lands, the word also applies to side dishes and garnishes that include other vegetables, and may even be substantial enough for a small main dish. The idea and the name have spread throughout the world, particularly in Asia and Africa.
satay, n.--The kebabs of Southeast Asia, satays are among the most common dishes in Indonesia and Malaysia. They're made two ways. Chicken, beef, or pork is cut into long strips, marinated, and then threaded in a zig-zag way on a skewer. Or it can be made into a finely-ground meatball and packed around the skewer. (Shrimp satays are very often made in this latter style.) Either way, the skewers are then grilled and served with (most often) a peanut sauce. Satays usually turn up as appetizers in all kinds of Asian restaurants in this country, particularly Thai places.
scrod, n.--Also spelled schrod. Originally, the word meant a small, young cod. Over time--especially when the supply of cod began to shrink--it also came to mean a small generic whitefish. Its use on menus is limited almost entirely to the Northeast United States, especially New England. The word probably comes from the Dutch word for "fillet." Another story--almost certainly made up--is that it stands for "small cod remaining on dock." The alternate spellings have given rise to speculation that they mean different things--as in "scrod" is a young cod, and "schrod" is a young haddock. For all its fame in New England, it's not considered one of the great eating fish.
semolina, n.--A coarse flour used primarily for making pasta. Semolina is made from durum wheat, whose hard, brittle grains crack into sharp groats when milled. In its most common form, semolina is more gritty than dusty, as all-purpose flour is. When water is added to it, semolina flour will not become starchy and sticky, and remains firm even after the pasta made from it is boiled. Because of the hardness of the flour grains, water and even a little air gets between them, and gives a lighter texture to the pasta than finely-milled, softer flour would. Semolina is also handy for moving pizzas onto and off of a pizza stone, by sprinkling some of the gritty flour on the paddle.
shabu-shabu, n.--A Japanese entree made by dipping translucently thin slices of beef into a pan of simmering broth. This is done tableside by the diner, who with chopsticks swis