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Terms in blue are illustrated on the Confusing food words homepage
These
have been selected from those found particularly awkward to communicate in
cross-cultural encounters in Poland, and also where dictionaries have been
found less than helpful. See Dictionary food issues for a discussion of these difficulties - terms in bold italics have their own entries.
- alcohol - even a small amount of
alcohol makes a drink alcoholic. Drinks with a high level such as gin,
whisky (in Ireland and the US - whiskey) and vodka are known as spirits. As a term it is not used for an individual drink and is not
countable
- baked beans - beans in tomato sauce
(almost always without any meat). Very cheap and very popular especially
with children, often a part of the ‘traditional’ breakfast or eaten with
chips or toast. See photo
- buns - small and sweet, and using
yeast e.g. doughnuts (pączki - hot cross buns are traditional for Good Friday and you will find a recipe here.)
- cake - a finished dish,
sweet and ready for eating - baking powder not yeast is normally used. The sponge photograph on the homepage shows a typical cake, while a scone is a small kind usually eaten with butter, jam or/and ‘clotted’
cream (typically 55% + fat content) which you add yourself. We also have a recipe for a Jamaica rum cake.
- custard - a thick yellow sauce made from
eggs, sugar and milk which can be poured on top of almost any kind of
pudding - see the homepage photo
- dough - the mixture of flour,
water, salt and yeast, used for making bread and buns
- fruit and
vegetables - on market stalls and in supermarkets it is always in this form
and fruits will never be used in this context
- game - the (uncountable) name
used for the meat of wild birds and animals e.g. game pie (which could include venison the meat from deer)
- gravy - a sauce made from the
‘juices’ of the roasting meat collected, thickened with flour and
flavoured, and then poured onto the meat and vegetables - see the homepage photo
- marmalade - jam made from citrus
fruits (oranges, limes, lemons, grapefruit). Almost always eaten at
breakfast - whereas jams are largely eaten at tea. Marmalade is NOT marmolada - see Dictionary food issues
- mincemeat/ minced
meat -
these two are completely different. Mincemeat is the filling for mince pies (see homepage
photo), is
made from dried fruit and sugar, eaten before Christmas (typically offered
to guests) and is totally vegetarian! Minced meat is meat which is minced
e.g. the beef used in cottage pies. These are also known as shepherd’s pies - click for a recipe.
- pastry - made from flour, water,
salt, often butter, and possibly sugar (for sweet pies), rolled out to the
necessary thickness and used to encase pies
- to pick - mushrooms, fruit and so
on are picked (not picked up) - if they then fall to the
floor they are picked up. Pick has
an emphasis on choosing e.g. you pick a book from the shelf but pick it
up from the table to read, you might pick a
fridge from those available in the shop but pick it up
later in a van.
- pie - has a filling completely
enclosed in pastry. They can be sweet or savoury, hot or cold and large or small (or any combination). They are
found frequently in Britain and in great variety. They feature on two of the photos on the homepage. Some common examples: pork pies (small, cold and savoury), fruit pies (usually large, hot and sweet e.g. blackberry and apple pie), rabbit pie (large, hot and savoury), mince pies (small, hot or cold, and sweet) and of
course exceptions such as cottage pie for which no pastry is used
at all. See also Dictionary
food issues and for a recipe - see raised veal pie.
o
an
everyday name for the dessert course (which can also be called the sweet or afters)
o
the
name of a very wide range of dishes which could be used for this course e.g. the photograph of the bread and butter pudding on the homepage. Also see Queen of Puddings for a recipe for a very good pudding.
o
the
name of a number of savoury
dishes eaten as a main course e.g. steak and kidney pudding or Yorkshire pudding (see photo)
o
used
for certain kinds of sausage e.g. black pudding (which includes the pig’s blood
and can be bought hot in fish and chip shops), and a number of regional kinds
such as hog’s pudding
o
a trifle is a complex kind of pudding including sponge and custard as well as cream, wine, jelly
and maybe fruit, nuts, other light biscuits and so on, all hidden under the
layer of custard you can see in the photo
- savoury - often opposed to sweet,
meaning salty e.g. savoury biscuits (like paluszki). Sour flavours are not so
popular in Britain - the use of the German sauerkraut (kapusta kiszona) instead of an English term shows this strangeness.
- ‘Smacznego’ - there is no English
equivalent, and you may hear a wide variety of expressions used at the
table according to the situation. Those typically used in families include
eat up - especially if people look a bit
reluctant, or tuck in - if people are not sure
whether to begin. The French Bon appétit sounds terribly formal
- tart - has pastry on the bottom only so you
can see the filling e.g. jam tarts. See also Dictionary food issues
- tasty/ tasteful - food is tasty
but the table could be tastefully laid. Tasteless is the opposite of both
- toast - uncountable in English -
use pieces or slices of
toast for a
plural. Any kind of bread can be toasted - there is no bread called
‘toast’. The form toasts does exist however - it is
when everyone drinks to something e.g. at a wedding a toast will be
proposed to the bride and bridegroom …
- tea - both a meal and a drink - see our item from an FCO publication - Tea
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