Gourmet Food Glossary
A Handy Reference for Our Gourmet Food Topics
Here's a single place to find quick links to all the topics, tips, cookbook reviews, news and sources I cover in my articles and blog posts. What is foie gras? Who makes the best gourmet chocolate? What is an artisanal product? What's a locavore? What does sustainable agriculture mean? Is gazpacho always red? What's a mojito?
This index will include links embedded in articles and blog posts, all accessible in one easy click. I'll be updating this index on an ongoing basis.
I invite you to drop me a line by clicking here with any requests or ideas. Just let me know if you want me to add a term or cover a topic, my goal is to keep this evergreen and useful.
A is for:
Andouille - Andouille sausage - an essential ingredient in classic dishes of New Orleans Cajun and Creole cuisine, such as Gumbo.
Artisanal - Products produced in traditional ways. Often hand-crafted by small, family-owned farms or entities.
B is for:
Braising - A wet-roasting technique that slow cooks inexpensive cuts of meat, or even vegetables. The use of small amounts of moisture with cuts like chuck break down connective tissue and infuse the tenderized meat with aromatics added to the cooking liquid.
Bratwurst - German sausage. Fresh, not smoked. Often called "brats" for short.
Bears Head Mushrooms - Once rare, now cultivated, mushrooms (actually fungus).These are huge, round fungus something near the size of an apple. Pale ivory in color, they are quite delicate and should only be purchased if pristinely white/ivory. They have a delicate flavor, but good texture. Best sauteed.
Example:
From Porcini to Oyster and Cremini to Shiitake, she thought she'd eaten every mushroom around. The Bear's Head mushrooms were a new and delicious find.
See:
Bloise, Michael - Award-winning chef of South Beach Miami's Wish Hotel. Known for elegant fusion of cuisines including flavors of Florida and Caribbean. Often calls upon his own heritage in technique (braising as his Italian family might) and ingredients (such as lemongrass, familiar to his Vietnamese family.)
Bouillabaisse - Classic fish soup from Marseilles, France. Typically, this Provencçal dish will contain many types of fish, shellfish, fennel, saffron, and croutons with rouille floating on top.
Buddha's Hand - Odd, mostly ornamental citrus fruit named after its finger-like shape.
C is for:
Cartoccio -"al cartoccio" Italian term for the method more widely known by the French term "en papillote." In this method, food is wrapped in a pouch of parchment paper, then baked. The food steams in the packet. Easy cleanup and elegant preparation. Foil can be used in place of parchment.
Example:
We had our last striper of the season, fresh from the fishmongers. A pristine cooking method was in order to let the beauty of the fish shine through: al cartoccio was our choice. Opening our steaming parchment packets of delicate striper and julienned veggies was a beautiful end to summer.
See:
Cooking in Parchment: En Papillote or al Cartoccio
Chorizo - Also known as "chouriçe or chouriço" in Portuguese communities. Chorizo is richly flavored, smoked garlic sausage from Spain. Smokiness and red color are imparted from Spanish paprika or pimentón. Mexican chorizo is fresh, not smoked and spicier. These are not interchangeable.
In Spain, chorizo is popular at breakfast with eggs, or eaten as tapa. It's essential in many stews and paella.
Charentais melon - Melon similar to cantaloupe. Incredibly fragrant and tender melon, known to induce swooning. Looks similar to cantaloupe, slightly smaller and veined.
Court Bouillon - Court bouillon is a poaching liquid used primarily to poach seafood and fish. Water is just simmered with onion, carrot, celery (mirepoix) bay leaf, wine, peppercorns, lemon. The Langoustines added depth of flavor and I added some red pepper flake, some green peppercorns. I strained the stock through cheescloth then froze it for my next chowder or risotto.
Culatello -
D is for:
Dill pickle
E is for:
F is for:
Florribean - Term used to describe the fusion of Caribbean and other cuisines that combine in unique combinations in Florida. Key elements include spices, citrus (like intense Key limes) and other fruits like mamey (a tropical fruit with a flavor something like a cross between peach and apricot), mango, and papaya are very common. Rice and Plantains are often components of the meal.
Foie Gras - Currently maligned delicacy at the epicenter of food morality controversy and the subject of a "ban" in Chicago. Liver of ducks or geese intentionally fattened by a force-feeding process called "gavage". When you stop wearing leather, driving a car and condemning others' choices, come talk to me. I'll be right here with some foie and a glass of sauternes. We'll chat.
G is for:
Gooseberry- Poha, cape gooseberry. Small golden fruit with husk similar to tomatillo. Excellent in pies and jams due to its high level of pectin.
Gelato -
Gumbo
H
Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers - A medium hot pepper, larger than a jalepeno and milder. Usually a bright chartreuse, registers medium hot on the Scoville scale. These Hungarian Wax Peppers are in the mid- to low-end of the Scoville scale. They range from 5,000 to 15,000 SHUs.Ideal for pickling.
Heirloom (tomatoes) - Heirloom vegetables are increasingly popular as consumers re-discover older cultivars. Seeds have been saved and passed down through generations. Commercial tomatoes and other vegetables (hybrids) have been bred to meet the demands of mass market agriculture and to survive the farm-to-consumer transport. Older cultivars are often not as uniformly attractive as hybrids, but the flavor far outweighs many commercial hybrids.
I
J
K
Kaiseki
Kumquat
Kurobuta -
L
Locavores - Term coined by San Francisco group interested in promoting local sustainable agriculture and raising consumer awareness of impacts of food choices. They advocate eating only, or primarily, food grown within a 100 mile radius of one's location. In their case, San Francisco.
M
Meyer Lemon
Morels
N
O
Omnivore - Strictly speaking: a being that eats both animal and vegetable matter. The term has been popularized by Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" one of the lynchpins of the current food morality debate.
Organic
Oregano
P
en Papillotte - French technique of cooking in parchment paper. In this method, food is wrapped in a pouch of parchment paper and baked. The food steams in the packet. Easy cleanup and elegant preparation. Foil can be used in place of parchment.
Cooking in Parchment: En Papillote or al Cartoccio
Q
R
Ramps -
Rouille - ("roo - ee") - Literally, rust. A type of paste that is rust colored. Made from garlic, olive oil, breadcrumbs and chile peppers. Served like a aioli on top of croutons or toasts in the classic Provençal dish, Bouillabaisse.
S
Scoville - Wilbur Scoville devised a method to measure heat in peppers to rationalize and codify one man's "hot" with another's "mild". Essentially, Scoville diluted peppers with water and sugar and recorded the required amount of dilution of any given pepper to reduce its heat as perceived by testers. These Hungarian Wax Peppers are in the mid- to low-end of the Scoville scale. They range from 5,000 to 15,000 SHUs.
The regular consumption of hot peppers is said to reduce the receptors of this compound, hence the noted ability of elders in many parts of the world to eat the hottest of peppers as if they were popcorn.
Shiso
S/O/L/E - Acronym attributed to The Ethicurean web log team. Stands for S Sustainable; O Organic; L Local; E Etthical.
Spargel - German name for white asparagus. Grown in mounds of earth to retard photosynthesis that would turn it green.
Shabu Shabu - Japanese type of meal comprised of fresh meats and vegetables very thinly sliced. Diners swish the food in bubbling broth on a burner in the middle of the table.
Sonoran
Seri
Sofrito - Sofrito recipes vary and are different in Puerto Rican dishes than in Cuban, but the essential elements include: onions, garlic, pepper (either small sweet red peppers or green bell peppers), oregano, cumin, bay leaf, oil, and culantro. Culantro and the small sweet peppers are two items you're likely to find only in a Latino market or an Asian market. Culantro is not cilantro, but has a similar flavor. The leaves are long and serrated and is sometimes called long coriander or recao.
Careful not to confuse these sweet peppers with habaneros or Scotch bonnets! Those are among the hottest peppers on the planet. Sweet peppers used in sofrito look more elongated, almost like a red jalapeno. Sofrito is widely used to flavor meats, soups and stews.
Sustainable -
T
Tapioca - a product made from cassava root. Usually dried and formed into flakes, powder or small or large "pearls". The slightly chewy pearls in bubble tea are tapioca. Either the flour or the small pearls can be used to thicken things like soups and berry pies. A tapioca pudding is usually made of small pearls.
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
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