Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Common Food Mispronunciations and Misnomers


Fat Guy

Recommended Posts

ditto Parmesan vs. Parmigiana, and the whole pizza is not a pie thing.

I mean really, Parmesan is a perfectly valid English word. We don't say Parisien with a French accent, we say Parisian.

I don't know how pizza came to be known as a pie...

in my book pies are sweet!

*preparing for onslaught of devout English and otherwise savoury pie fans...*

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, pizza and pie are two very different things, they are not interchangeable.

This is one matter in which I'll join Public Enemy and fight the power. A pie involves a pastry lid and braised meat (or, if you're so inclined, stewed fruit). A pizza is ... pizza. One of these things is not like the other. I do not understand people--and there are many here--who deem a baked disk of bread topped with cheese, tomato, et al to be pie.

Structurally, a pecan pie and a Chicago deep dish sausage pizza have a lot in common with each other.

PS: I am a guy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interestingly, the Italian-Americans at our local pizzeria in Queens, New York, generally refer to what they sell as "pies" and not as "pizzas" or even "pizza pies." I'll ask for a "medium pizza, half plain, half pepperoni and mushrooms," and the guy behind the counter will confirm, "medium pie,..."

I'd chalk that up to assimilationism from two or three generations ago, when they started calling tomato sauce "red gravy" or "Sunday gravy," because that's what working-class Americans called any kind of sauce at the time. I remember the first time I heard an old Italian guy from Brooklyn talking about the family dinners they made when he was growing up with "gravy" on everything, and I thought it really strange that they were having brown sauce on their pasta, fried fish, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd chalk that up to assimilationism from two or three generations ago, when they started calling tomato sauce "red gravy" or "Sunday gravy," because that's what working-class Americans called any kind of sauce at the time. I remember the first time I heard an old Italian guy from Brooklyn talking about the family dinners they made when he was growing up with "gravy" on everything, and I thought it really strange that they were having brown sauce on their pasta, fried fish, etc.

It wasn't until I was in grade school that I learned "gravy" could be something other than the red sauce we had all the time, and especially on Sundays!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, pizza and pie are two very different things, they are not interchangeable.

This is one matter in which I'll join Public Enemy and fight the power. A pie involves a pastry lid and braised meat (or, if you're so inclined, stewed fruit). A pizza is ... pizza. One of these things is not like the other. I do not understand people--and there are many here--who deem a baked disk of bread topped with cheese, tomato, et al to be pie.

I can easily name 30 (possibly 100) pies that have no pastry lid that noone would argue aren't pies.

Chess pie

Chocolate pie

Banana Cream

Key Lime

...need I go on.

Edited: grammar

Edited by BadRabbit (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chess pie is basicly a sugar pie it is kind of weird in that it has vinegar and cornmeal in the filling. It is a staple in southern diners. If I can find my recipe I'll post it. I use a little dark rum to accent the sugar.

I was on the island Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles) a couple years ago and on the menu there was a dish that had Gouda cheese in it. When the waiter was describing the dish he said HOW-duh. I asked him what HOW-duh was and he said, "Well you're American so you would say goo-DA." He was right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd chalk that up to assimilationism from two or three generations ago, when they started calling tomato sauce "red gravy" or "Sunday gravy," because that's what working-class Americans called any kind of sauce at the time. I remember the first time I heard an old Italian guy from Brooklyn talking about the family dinners they made when he was growing up with "gravy" on everything, and I thought it really strange that they were having brown sauce on their pasta, fried fish, etc.

There was a sizeable Italian community in the small Arkansas Delta town where I spent 30 years. Tomato sauce, with meat, was "spaghetti gravy."

Don't ask. Eat it.

www.kayatthekeyboard.wordpress.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chess pie is basicly a sugar pie it is kind of weird in that it has vinegar and cornmeal in the filling. It is a staple in southern diners. If I can find my recipe I'll post it. I use a little dark rum to accent the sugar.

I was on the island Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles) a couple years ago and on the menu there was a dish that had Gouda cheese in it. When the waiter was describing the dish he said HOW-duh. I asked him what HOW-duh was and he said, "Well you're American so you would say goo-DA." He was right.

I dunno how they speak Dutch there, but in Holland it's definitely a guttural KKKHHHow-da sound

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chess pie is basicly a sugar pie it is kind of weird in that it has vinegar and cornmeal in the filling. It is a staple in southern diners. If I can find my recipe I'll post it. I use a little dark rum to accent the sugar.

I was on the island Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles) a couple years ago and on the menu there was a dish that had Gouda cheese in it. When the waiter was describing the dish he said HOW-duh. I asked him what HOW-duh was and he said, "Well you're American so you would say goo-DA." He was right.

I dunno how they speak Dutch there, but in Holland it's definitely a guttural KKKHHHow-da sound

You did it right, I didn't know how to represent the back of the throat sound on the leading H.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If tomato sauce is "gravy", then what do you call gravy?

I've always wondered about the term "creamed potatoes" in the South, referring to mashed potatoes. Creamed potatoes are boiled potatoes immersed in cream sauce, what do they call them?

Aargh!

Ruth Dondanville aka "ruthcooks"

“Are you making a statement, or are you making dinner?” Mario Batali

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If tomato sauce is "gravy", then what do you call gravy?

I've always wondered about the term "creamed potatoes" in the South, referring to mashed potatoes. Creamed potatoes are boiled potatoes immersed in cream sauce, what do they call them?

Aargh!

I'm from the south and have never heard them called creamed. We treat our potatos like we treat buttons in an elevator; we "mash" them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Speaking of southern pronunciations, most people in the south refer to canned sausages as "VIE-ee-na sausages" though I have never heard anybody mispronounce the name of the city. I'm guessing most people just don't put two and two together on the subject.

Edited by BadRabbit (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Recently (blog post somewhere? can't remember, but I'm racking my brains), I came across 'pasta y fagioli' multiple times in the same place, so, not a typo, and it made me crazy. Should be 'pasta e fagioli' (or I guess you could also have 'pasta y frijoles').

I've also come across 'porchinis', which is even worse than 'porcinis', since not only is it doubly pluralized, but in Italian, it would be pronounced 'por-KEE-neez'. <shudder>

Michaela, aka "Mjx"
Manager, eG Forums
mscioscia@egstaff.org

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My friends in East Tennessee use the pronunciation VIE-in-ee for the horrible little canned sausages. I can't say that I have ever heard them pronounce the name of the city. But they tend to pronounce the word Italy as IT-Lee.

Sounds like Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A frequently mispronounced food-related word is "restaurateur." It's like nails on a blackboard when I hear it mispronounced on the TV Food Network, or by NPR hosts who ought to know better.

"RestauraNteur," they say — that is, they insert an "N" in the middle of a word that has no "N".

The correct anglicized pronunciation is ress-ter-ruh-TUR. . .Dictionary.com has a sound clip:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/restaurateur

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A frequently mispronounced food-related word is "restaurateur." It's like nails on a blackboard when I hear it mispronounced on the TV Food Network, or by NPR hosts who ought to know better.

"RestauraNteur," they say — that is, they insert an "N" in the middle of a word that has no "N".

The correct anglicized pronunciation is ress-ter-ruh-TUR. . .Dictionary.com has a sound clip:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/restaurateur

I believe that the spelling and pronunciation "restauranteur" has moved past being an error and is becoming the more commonly used spelling. Several dictionaries already list it as an alternate spelling.

Lots of foreign words that are adopted into English eventually get Anglicized.

ETA: Clarification

Edited by BadRabbit (log)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Recently (blog post somewhere? can't remember, but I'm racking my brains), I came across 'pasta y fagioli' multiple times in the same place, so, not a typo, and it made me crazy. Should be 'pasta e fagioli' (or I guess you could also have 'pasta y frijoles').

Just as you will find many references to "Punt y mes" in these very forums...

Matthew Kayahara

Kayahara.ca

@mtkayahara

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...