Is puree a verb or a noun?
Does sauté mean pan-frying or preparing food in a skillet with oil?
Do you know the difference between fillet and filet?
If you're not sure about the answers to the questions above, well, don't worry, you're not alone. Many people are not so sure about the meaning of different terms. In fact, two years ago, manufacturers of your simple cake-mix decided to have box directions rewritten to make them simple enough for those who are not familiar with basic terms used by another generation.
The insertion of French words to the English language made cooking terms more complicated. With the dominance of these French people in the area of fine cuisine (another French term!), it is not so surprising that numerous terms have been included now in the language of cooking.
It is because of this that chefs need to study French in many culinary institutions and cooks at homes need to at least have some kind of acquaintance with a few of them.
Puree, for example, is a common term now and surprise! It is a verb, but as well as a noun. As a verb, in English, it means several things: mash, pulverize, and grind. Well, we've got the French to thank for the coining of the more elegant term puree.
Sauté is another French term, which refers to pan-frying; however, the word has become so common place that it is also used to refer to preparing food in a skillet with oil. It is no wonder that some refer to skillets as sauté pans.
Fillet and filet are also two terms that many people, even writers of menu, get confused about. Fillet is only the spelling in English, filet the term in French - a piece of boneless fish or meat. For beef tenderloin, it's filet mignon. This French word became so familiar that Webster's New World Culinary Arts Dictionary defines filet as the fabrication of a boneless piece of meat, as well as a term for the production of the action mentioned above. Fillet, on the other hand, refers to the act of fish filleting and the side of fish without bones.
Does sauté mean pan-frying or preparing food in a skillet with oil?
Do you know the difference between fillet and filet?
If you're not sure about the answers to the questions above, well, don't worry, you're not alone. Many people are not so sure about the meaning of different terms. In fact, two years ago, manufacturers of your simple cake-mix decided to have box directions rewritten to make them simple enough for those who are not familiar with basic terms used by another generation.
The insertion of French words to the English language made cooking terms more complicated. With the dominance of these French people in the area of fine cuisine (another French term!), it is not so surprising that numerous terms have been included now in the language of cooking.
It is because of this that chefs need to study French in many culinary institutions and cooks at homes need to at least have some kind of acquaintance with a few of them.
Puree, for example, is a common term now and surprise! It is a verb, but as well as a noun. As a verb, in English, it means several things: mash, pulverize, and grind. Well, we've got the French to thank for the coining of the more elegant term puree.
Sauté is another French term, which refers to pan-frying; however, the word has become so common place that it is also used to refer to preparing food in a skillet with oil. It is no wonder that some refer to skillets as sauté pans.
Fillet and filet are also two terms that many people, even writers of menu, get confused about. Fillet is only the spelling in English, filet the term in French - a piece of boneless fish or meat. For beef tenderloin, it's filet mignon. This French word became so familiar that Webster's New World Culinary Arts Dictionary defines filet as the fabrication of a boneless piece of meat, as well as a term for the production of the action mentioned above. Fillet, on the other hand, refers to the act of fish filleting and the side of fish without bones.
Cooking is fun, and learning how to cook is even more fun. The experience of cooking can be a great source of enjoyment and relaxation for many who love it, learn about Cooking Lessons, cooking and how to improve you cooking skills at http://cooking.advice-tips.com, a cooking site for http://advice-tips.com/ the internet advice portal.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Celia_Namart
George Orwell - In Defence of English Cooking
It is commonly said, even by the English themselves, that English cooking is the worst in the world. It is supposed to be not merely incompetent, but also imitative, and I even read quite recently, in a book by a French writer, the remark: ‘The best English cooking is, of course, simply French cooking.’
Now that is simply not true, as anyone who has lived long abroad will know, there is a whole host of delicacies which it is quite impossible to obtain outside the English-speaking countries. No doubt the list could be added to, but here are some of the things that I myself have sought for in foreign countries and failed to find.
First of all, kippers, Yorkshire pudding, Devonshire cream, muffins and crumpets. Then a list of puddings that would be interminable if I gave it in full: I will pick out for special mention Christmas pudding, treacle tart and apple dumplings. Then an almost equally long list of cakes: for instance, dark plum cake (such as you used to get at Buzzard’s before the war), short-bread and saffron buns. Also innumerable kinds of biscuit, which exist, of course, elsewhere, but are generally admitted to be better and crisper in England.
Then there are the various ways of cooking potatoes that are peculiar to our own country. Where else do you see potatoes roasted under the joint, which is far and away the best way of cooking them? Or the delicious potato cakes that you get in the north of England? And it is far better to cook new potatoes in the English way — that is, boiled with mint and then served with a little melted butter or margarine — than to fry them as is done in most countries.
Then there are the various sauces peculiar to England. For instance, bread sauce, horse-radish sauce, mint sauce and apple sauce; not to mention redcurrant jelly, which is excellent with mutton as well as with hare, and various kinds of sweet pickle, which we seem to have in greater profusion than most countries.
What else? Outside these islands I have never seen a haggis, except one that came out of a tin, nor Dublin prawns, nor Oxford marmalade, nor several other kinds of jam (marrow jam and bramble jelly, for instance), nor sausages of quite the same kind as ours.
Then there are the English cheeses. There are not many of them but I fancy Stilton is the best cheese of its type in the world, with Wensleydale not far behind. English apples are also outstandingly good, particularly the Cox’s Orange Pippin.
And finally, I would like to put in a word for English bread. All the bread is good, from the enormous Jewish loaves flavoured with caraway seeds to the Russian rye bread which is the colour of black treacle. Still, if there is anything quite as good as the soft part of the crust from an English cottage loaf (how soon shall we be seeing cottage loaves again?) I do not know of it.
No doubt some of the things I have named above could be obtained in continental Europe, just as it is possible in London to obtain vodka or bird’s nest soup. But they are all native to our shores, and over huge areas they are literally unheard of.
South of, say, Brussels, I do not imagine that you would succeed in getting hold of a suet pudding. In French there is not even a word that exactly translates ‘suet’. The French, also, never use mint in cookery and do not use black currants except as a basis of a drink.
It will be seen that we have no cause to be ashamed of our cookery, so far as originality goes or so far as the ingredients go. And yet it must be admitted that there is a serious snag from the foreign visitor’s point of view. This is, that you practically don’t find good English cooking outside a private house. If you want, say, a good, rich slice of Yorkshire pudding you are more likely to get it in the poorest English home than in a restaurant, which is where the visitor necessarily eats most of his meals.
It is a fact that restaurants which are distinctively English and which also sell good food are very hard to find. Pubs, as a rule, sell no food at all, other than potato crisps and tasteless sandwiches. The expensive restaurants and hotels almost all imitate French cookery and write their menus in French, while if you want a good cheap meal you gravitate naturally towards a Greek, Italian or Chinese restaurant. We are not likely to succeed in attracting tourists while England is thought of as a country of bad food and unintelligible by-laws. At present one cannot do much about it, but sooner or later rationing will come to an end, and then will be the moment for our national cookery to revive. It is not a law of nature that every restaurant in England should be either foreign or bad, and the first step towards an improvement will be a less long-suffering attitude in the British public itself.
George Orwell - In Defence of English Cooking
We have heard a good deal of talk in recent years about the desirability of attracting foreign tourists to this country. It is well known that England’s two worst faults, from a foreign visitor’s point of view, are the gloom of our Sundays and the difficulty of buying a drink.
Both of these are due of fanatical minorities who will need a lot of quelling, including extensive legislation. But there is one point on which public opinion could bring about a rapid change for the better: I mean cooking.It is commonly said, even by the English themselves, that English cooking is the worst in the world. It is supposed to be not merely incompetent, but also imitative, and I even read quite recently, in a book by a French writer, the remark: ‘The best English cooking is, of course, simply French cooking.’
Now that is simply not true, as anyone who has lived long abroad will know, there is a whole host of delicacies which it is quite impossible to obtain outside the English-speaking countries. No doubt the list could be added to, but here are some of the things that I myself have sought for in foreign countries and failed to find.
First of all, kippers, Yorkshire pudding, Devonshire cream, muffins and crumpets. Then a list of puddings that would be interminable if I gave it in full: I will pick out for special mention Christmas pudding, treacle tart and apple dumplings. Then an almost equally long list of cakes: for instance, dark plum cake (such as you used to get at Buzzard’s before the war), short-bread and saffron buns. Also innumerable kinds of biscuit, which exist, of course, elsewhere, but are generally admitted to be better and crisper in England.
Then there are the various ways of cooking potatoes that are peculiar to our own country. Where else do you see potatoes roasted under the joint, which is far and away the best way of cooking them? Or the delicious potato cakes that you get in the north of England? And it is far better to cook new potatoes in the English way — that is, boiled with mint and then served with a little melted butter or margarine — than to fry them as is done in most countries.
Then there are the various sauces peculiar to England. For instance, bread sauce, horse-radish sauce, mint sauce and apple sauce; not to mention redcurrant jelly, which is excellent with mutton as well as with hare, and various kinds of sweet pickle, which we seem to have in greater profusion than most countries.
What else? Outside these islands I have never seen a haggis, except one that came out of a tin, nor Dublin prawns, nor Oxford marmalade, nor several other kinds of jam (marrow jam and bramble jelly, for instance), nor sausages of quite the same kind as ours.
Then there are the English cheeses. There are not many of them but I fancy Stilton is the best cheese of its type in the world, with Wensleydale not far behind. English apples are also outstandingly good, particularly the Cox’s Orange Pippin.
And finally, I would like to put in a word for English bread. All the bread is good, from the enormous Jewish loaves flavoured with caraway seeds to the Russian rye bread which is the colour of black treacle. Still, if there is anything quite as good as the soft part of the crust from an English cottage loaf (how soon shall we be seeing cottage loaves again?) I do not know of it.
No doubt some of the things I have named above could be obtained in continental Europe, just as it is possible in London to obtain vodka or bird’s nest soup. But they are all native to our shores, and over huge areas they are literally unheard of.
South of, say, Brussels, I do not imagine that you would succeed in getting hold of a suet pudding. In French there is not even a word that exactly translates ‘suet’. The French, also, never use mint in cookery and do not use black currants except as a basis of a drink.
It will be seen that we have no cause to be ashamed of our cookery, so far as originality goes or so far as the ingredients go. And yet it must be admitted that there is a serious snag from the foreign visitor’s point of view. This is, that you practically don’t find good English cooking outside a private house. If you want, say, a good, rich slice of Yorkshire pudding you are more likely to get it in the poorest English home than in a restaurant, which is where the visitor necessarily eats most of his meals.
It is a fact that restaurants which are distinctively English and which also sell good food are very hard to find. Pubs, as a rule, sell no food at all, other than potato crisps and tasteless sandwiches. The expensive restaurants and hotels almost all imitate French cookery and write their menus in French, while if you want a good cheap meal you gravitate naturally towards a Greek, Italian or Chinese restaurant. We are not likely to succeed in attracting tourists while England is thought of as a country of bad food and unintelligible by-laws. At present one cannot do much about it, but sooner or later rationing will come to an end, and then will be the moment for our national cookery to revive. It is not a law of nature that every restaurant in England should be either foreign or bad, and the first step towards an improvement will be a less long-suffering attitude in the British public itself.
1945
THE END
____
It seems a woman's place is not in the kitchen. The 2010 Michelin Guide gave its coveted stars to 140 restaurants in the UK. Only 11 have a female name above the door.Do men really make the best chefs?
For Daksha Mistry, a 2006 BBC MasterChef female finalist who now runs Daksha's Fine Dining, a Gujarati catering company, discrimination in the industry is alive and well: "Of course there is sexism in the culinary industry," she said. "Most restaurateurs are more likely to hire a young man because they can run around the kitchen faster with heavy pans and create more business. Men have greater muscle power, yet women are calmer in the kitchen."
But celebrity chef John Burton Race says: "It is a fact that men are the best cooks, professional or not. Industrial kitchens may have heavy equipment, but men are the best cooks because they are more passionate and take cooking more seriously."
Martin Blunos, a chef on the Channel 4 programme Iron Chef UK, has a different take: "The kitchen is classically male dominated and there is a perceived image of a cauldron of heat, sweat and testosterone. If women are in the kitchen, it takes out the male brashness. Men step up and give better than their all because they feel they shouldn't be outshone by a woman. This makes for a better product for the customer."
Stacie Stewart impressed many top chefs as part of her MasterChef experience. She is now back in the North-east working as a PA and running an online bakery, and has some traditional views on the subject. "It's a high-pressure environment. Hard work and long hours, late into the night. If you want to have kids and start a family, I don't see how you can do that and be a chef.
"I'm not saying women can't be top chefs. Of course they've got the ability. But I think people think that because more women cook at home, more women should have made it to the top, but that's not how it works. A lot has changed in recent years, there's more of them breaking through, but it takes time.
"I'd love to get my own restaurant, get a book published, get on the TV circuit. But I don't want a Michelin star, it doesn't interest me. [I'd rather] teach people how to be really good home cooks. I'm very traditional and, dare I say it, I believe a woman's place is in the home."
MasterChef in numbers
1 woman
has won MasterChef since it was relaunched in 2005. Thomasina Miers has since opened two branches of her Mexican street food restaurant Wahaca in London.
11 restaurants in the UK with Michelin stars have female head chefs; that's out of a total of 140 restaurants.