Friday, June 22, 2007

French cooking terms

AU-BLEU.-Fish dressed in such a manner as to have a bluish appearance.

BOUILLI._ Beef or other meat boiled; but, generally speaking, boiled beef is understood by the term.

CROQUETTE.-Ball of fried rice or potatoes.

DESOSSER.-To bone, or take out the bones from poultry, game, or fish. This is an operation requiring considerable experience.

FONCER.-To put in the bottom of a saucepan slices of ham, veal, or thin broad slices of bacon.

GALETTE.-A broad thin cake.

MAIGRE.-Broth, soup, or gravy, made without meat.

RISSOLES.-Pastry, made of light puff-paste, and cut into various forms, and fried. They made be filled with fish, meat, or sweets.

SAUCE PIQUANTE.-A sharp sauce, in which somewhat of a vinegar flavour predominates.

I found all of these most interesting terms in the book "Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management." It was written in the Victorian era, and has information on everything from the dairy-maid and her duties, to remedies for thin hair.
Now, I'm curious, how many of these terms has my dear Jeanette heard of before?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Off the subject of cooking terms . . . I'm curious, what is the remedy for thin hair?

Pat Cole said...

To Promote the Growth of Hair:

INGREDIENTS.-Equal quantities of olive-oil and spirit of rosemary; a few drops of oil of nutmeg.
Mode.-Mix the ingredients together, rub the roots of the hair every night with a little of this liniment, and the growth of it will very soon sensibly increase.

Now, I'm not sure if "growth" means length of hair of fullness. I assumed both in the previous post.

Some of the other remedies are a bit odd, to say the least. One recommends using brandy for the scent. Ugh!

And just for your enjoyment, here is an amish remedy:
"For thicker hair growth, rub some peach leaf tea onto your scalp. Your hair growth should become healthier."

Warning: I haven't tried either or these. (My hair is so thick as it is I can't imagine having to deal with it if it was thicker still.:)

Jeanette said...

Wow - you got me on almost all of these....the only one I was familiar with was galette. So apparently you can teach me something about the culinary arts after all, eh? :) See you tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Jane! Be thankful for your lovely thick locks. If your remedies worked on my hair, then we could safely say that they work! : )

Anonymous said...

Watch your French!