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Different Names for the Same Food Item: What's in a Name?

weedy

By weedy
in Food Traditions & Culture

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weedy

weedy

Posted
Posted

I can't stand when people call Coriander leaves 'cilantro' if they're otherwise speaking english.


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Martin Fisher

Martin Fisher

Posted
Posted (edited)

One of my big gripes is the deli section at Whole Foods, where they say all their charcuterie is uncured. Huh? They're selling things that are by definition cured: hams, prosciuttos, etc... 

Apparently the industry lobbied to have the official definition of "uncured" altered to mean free of certain kinds of nitrates or nitrites. Which is just b.s.. -- marketing departments influencing the laws in order to pander to the public's misconceptions. Makes me want to kill people.

 

 

Kill people over a label?

 

Much of the labeling that seems deceptive is actual required.

 

From USDA materials.....

 

"Bacon can be manufactured without the use of nitrite, but must be labeled "Uncured Bacon, No Nitrates or Nitrites added" and bear the statement "Not Preserved, Keep Refrigerated Below 40 °F At All Times" — unless the final product has been dried according to USDA regulations, or if the product contains an amount of salt sufficient to achieve an internal brine concentration of 10% or more, the label does not have to carry the handle statement of "Not Preserved, Keep Refrigerated below ___" etc. Recent research studies have shown for products labeled as uncured, certain ingredients added during formulation can naturally produce small amounts of nitrates in bacon and, therefore, have to be labeled with the explanatory statement "no nitrates or nitrites added except for those naturally occurring in ingredients such as celery juice powder, parsley, cherry powder, beet powder, spinach, sea salt etc."

 

Applegate has actually petitioned the USDA to have the labeling laws changed....

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/16cf683e-7b58-4872-88c0-d800d58c6aef/Petition_Applegate_110311.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

Edited by DiggingDogFarm (log)

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted

I can't stand when people call Coriander leaves 'cilantro' if they're otherwise speaking english.

 

 

I will disagree on that one. At least here in Southern California with a vast Hispanic population the default is cilantro. If you said coriander most place nobody would understand what you wanted

  • Like 5
weedy

weedy

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

I will disagree on that one. At least here in Southern California with a vast Hispanic population the default is cilantro. If you said coriander most place nobody would understand what you wanted

 

well then you are, in effect, speaking Spanish, and using the Spanish name, to a Spanish speaking population.

 

But the whole country isn't Southern CA.

When I see "cilantro" in an online recipe for an Indian dish, for example, it looks as ridiculous as if a Mexican salsa recipe called for "dhania leaves'

heidih

heidih

Posted
Posted

No Weedy -  I am using the accepted term for an herb in my area to the general population.  I specified the area but I see the term throughout US recipe and food sites. I seriously doubt that if you posted a recipe on a US site calling for coriander that more than a scant handful of people would think other then the dried seed.

  • Like 3
SobaAddict70

SobaAddict70

Posted
Posted

No Weedy -  I am using the accepted term for an herb in my area to the general population.  I specified the area but I see the term throughout US recipe and food sites. I seriously doubt that if you posted a recipe on a US site calling for coriander that more than a scant handful of people would think other then the dried seed.

It might depend on when the recipe was published.

A good example is a recipe for bastila from the FOTW book I bought today. It calls for 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh coriander, with cilantro in parentheses. This book came out in 1970.

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted (edited)

 

well then you are, in effect, speaking Spanish, and using the Spanish name, to a Spanish speaking population.

 

Whereas you are, in effect, speaking French and using the French name to a non-French speaking population.

 

What's the difference? Do Indians generally speak French? Why is a French word better than a Spanish one when used in a recipe for Indian food? Perhaps Portuguese would be more appropriate in some areas of India and their cuisine. But that would be "Coentro". 

 

Another example would be rocket (French) v. arugula (Italian).

These are merely different terms for the same thing. Even within British English, things have various names. As a Scot, you should know that.

 

It's very different from claiming something is X when it isn't. I think Edward J's point is very valid.

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Arey

Arey

Posted
Posted (edited)

English Muffins.  The same way I call Italian Bread Italian Bread, although I prefer Atlantic City Italian Bread as baked by a fourth generation Italian baker who's ancestor came to the U.S. early in the 20th century, built brick ovens and opened a bakery, and his grandson or great grandson  is still selling bread baked in the same ovens, using only four ingredients, water, flour, salt and yeast. It's a long narrow light colored crusty bread, with great texture, nicely chewy and when dipped into a bowl of clams in white wine sauce can soak up lots of the sauce while retaining its body.  Philadelphia does have several types of Italian bread and the various bakeries all have their partisans.  When making a hoagie a lot of the crumb has to be scooped out to fit in the meats and cheese and lettuce and tomato and all.  After transferring to the New Haven office of the agency I worked for I got a very rude awakening when I bought my first loaf of what they called Italian Bread there.  It was wrapped in plastic (it should have been in a long thin paper bag, brown or the colors of the Italian flag), and was a long flattish flabby loaf with a soft dark brown wrinkly crust and when dipped into white clam sauce dissolved. This from a city that claimed to be the American birthplace of pizza, only they called it apizza.

But getting back to my original point, Brie is Brie, fromager d'Affinoise is fromager d'Affinoise, Italian Fontina comes from Italy not Wisconsin and a Philly Cheese Steak, is not what America's Test Kitchen made on their show a week or two ago.

Edited by Arey (log)

"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted

 

What should we call English muffins?

 

In England we call them muffins.

 

However there a number of things which you call English, which we have never heard of. 

 

And try asking for a London broil in London. No chance.

  • Like 1

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

Arey

Arey

Posted
Posted (edited)

In England we call them muffins.

 

However there a number of things which you call English, which we have never heard of. 

 

And try asking for a London broil in London. No chance.

 

And, if some one from England asked for a muffin in a U.S. coffee shop, they'd probably be told they have bran, cranberry, blue berry, pumpkin, etc.  When people  ask for a kleenex, they probably don't mean a specific Kleenex as manufactured by Kinberly-Clark, although the Kleenex people wish they would. So maybe we should ask for a Thomas Or a Thomas Muffin.  You've got me wondering,  If you wanted a U.S. type muffin in England (assuming they have them) what would you ask for?  It's definitely not a scone.

As for London Broil, that's another issue in this country where standardization would help.  A London Broil is not a cut of beef it is a recipe, it is a recipe for flank steak.  If you ask my butcher for flank steak, he'll say he doesn't have any.  If you ask for a London Broil, he'll cut you one off a the round.

 

Edited by Arey (log)

"A fool", he said, "would have swallowed it". Samuel Johnson

cakewalk

cakewalk

Posted
Posted

In England we call them muffins.

 

However there a number of things which you call English, which we have never heard of. 

 

And try asking for a London broil in London. No chance.

I think they're called crumpets. Anyway, every country has its own name for particular items, no? Many years ago a friend from England moved to the States and was in a diner. He ordered from the menu a sandwich with chips, expecting French fries. He got a sandwich with some potato chips on the side. That's just a matter of getting used to cultural changes in language. (Like when an old roommate once asked if she could borrow one of my jumpers. I had no idea what she was talking about.) I don't think the OP is referring to those types of differences in naming food items, interesting as they might be.

liuzhou

liuzhou

Posted
Posted

My local supermarket sells what it calls "European Yogurt". 

 

If only Europe sold watery milk rammed to the gills with sugar! It is foul.

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

quiet1

quiet1

Posted
Posted

In England we call them muffins.

 

However there a number of things which you call English, which we have never heard of. 

 

And try asking for a London broil in London. No chance.

Really? When I lived in England I never encountered anything American English muffin like, regardless of the name, and none of my friends were aware of such a creature either. I did not particularly go searching them out, to be fair.

I seem to recall muffins of the type you'd expect in the US, like blueberry and so on, being sold as "American-style" muffins or something similar. Likewise in the freezer section you could get chips but also "American style French fries" which kind of amused me.

JoNorvelleWalker

JoNorvelleWalker

Posted
Posted

When I first visited Britain in the 1960's there was "American Hamburger"...which was breaded and deep fried.

  • Like 2

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

Porthos

Porthos

Posted
Posted

You won't find Pain Perdu(sp) (lost bread) in France? Fascinating.

Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

;

dcarch

dcarch

Posted
Posted (edited)

"Calling something by its proper name"? Good luck!

 

Where do you think pork butt is on a pig?

 

And where do you get oysters from rocky mountain?

 

dcarch

Edited by dcarch (log)
  • Like 1
CatPoet

CatPoet

Posted
Posted

I get those big  waffles you call  Belgian waffles in Belgium  when I was there and then we went over to  The Netherlands and had  some poffertjes and then back to Belgium  and got some chocolate and then  went to the Netherlands again  and bought  cheese. Fun day and we manage to park both in Netherlands and Belgium.

 

Lovely memories.

 

I know that cupcakes used to be called  Fairy cakes and my husband holds dear to that.

 

Im stuck in the EU,  you can call something Italian or French so long as you show the true origin of said thing and dont   try to call it something name protected . The Danes who are famous for making their own version of everything foodwise got around the problem  by misspelling thing like Mossarella  or putting Danish in front of it.

Cheese is you friend, Cheese will take care of you, Cheese will never betray you, But blue mold will kill me.

SylviaLovegren

SylviaLovegren

Posted
Posted

There is "Italian Bread" in Hudson County, NJ, too, and some of it is sublimely good.  Not anywhere else in NJ, either, unless it's imported from Hudson Co.

 

I think "American muffins" are called "cake" in England.

 

And "Canadian bacon" isn't.  

 

I know what "coriander leaf" is but I've always called it cilantro -- maybe that comes from having lived n California and Miami.  But it's called "cilantro" in my neighborhood in Toronto, too.

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