The Unexpected Origins of 20 Culinary Terms

Amuse-bouche, barbecue, umami... where do these delightful culinary words come from? Let's explore the history of these terms (and more) in this episode of Food History.

[cornbreadfedkirkpatrick]

You should team up with the Tasting History with Max Miller here on YT

[Theuntjeeee]

Au bain-marie has an interesting backstory involving alchemists in Egypt thousands of years ago!

[klaitor]

86!!!! I've always been told that it goes back to 86th street in Brooklyn where gangsters used to eat and also carry out hits on people. Hence the term being used for something being dead on the menu. So I always wanted to know if that was actually true.

[cornbreadfedkirkpatrick]

Also, a few foreign dishes were invented in America like fortune cookies, chop suey Russian dressing, etc

[grahamrankin]

Leaving a dish with the baker was common in European Jewish communities so it would cook overnight on the Sabbath because cooking was forbidden on the Sabbath. The residual heat of the baker's oven did the "work", not the housewife or the baker

[black_platypus]

No, "à la" doesn't _literally_ mean "in the style of".
Literally, it means "to the"; you could say "Je vais à la maison" and you _wouldn't_ be saying "I'm going in the style of the house".

[arwinarni]

4:03 Did he pronounce Onomatopoeia with two Ns?

[lounakin]

Should have mentioned the saltimbocca (jump into your mouth), the italian amuse-bouche :)

[ajhoward]

As I understand it, Dashi referres to stock made from shaved, dried fish. Kombu is dried bull kelp which is also used as the base of or ingredient in some soups, Kombu being the item which provides the glutamic acid. Dashi and Kombu then seems like they're different things...but you seem to be using the interchangeably. Is there something I'm missing?

[yanotopia]

Can you recommend any good Food History Books please. Thank you 😊

[niiii_niiii]

The thumbnail told me I was signed up to a channel called Motherf*ckin Food I was intrigued

[kscheffer]

Sooo...the painting shown when talking about 13th century England is actually 17th century Dutch. As an art historian, I don’t often get the opportunity to take my training into the real world, so I just had to mention it 😅

[SenoraCardgage]

I was expecting pasta puttanesca to be on the list.

[jjgdenisrobert]

“Amuse Bouche” is not a French term. There is a French term like it, though, which is probably where this atrocity comes from: “amuse gueule”. “Gueule” refers to the mouths of animals, “bouche” usually only refers to humans. The term “Amuse Bouche” is something restaurants created to sell the same item at twice the price, as is usually the case with Restaurant “French”.

[Dayglodaydreams]

You should do one on James Fortenberry and the dunk.

[HeBreaksLate]

I heard a different story regarding carbonara. During World War II, when American soldiers liberated Rome, grateful Italians offered to cook whatever the GIs wanted to eat. Having subsisted on canned rations for so long, the young GIs wanted nothing more than a simple breakfast of bacon and eggs. The Italians heard this request and thought "I've never put bacon and eggs in pasta before, but it's what they asked for."
There may not be any historic fact to it, but I love the story.

[locasailor]

the term South African Skottel Braai cooking methods also a nice backstory

[DougieLawson]

You missed the curious origins of the Chicken Balti. The Punjabi word balti means "bucket" (or karahi in Bengali). So it really is just a bucket of chicken curry.

[nickgov]

You missed out the great culinary invention from Birmingham UK, the Balti.

[vnceigz]

You skipped _à la mode_ (in the popular style). Since styles and fashions (of everything) tend to change over time, I can only assume there was a period where putting ice-cream on pie was new and exciting. 🤔