Add These Fascinating Words To Your Food Vocabulary!

A selection of not-often-used words that convey something about food in a manner so remarkable, they had me pause and admire the first time I heard them. Some of these words are witty, some technical, some distill a wealth of meaning in shorthand.

Which uncommon food words do you find fascinating?

1. amuse-bouche

In French, amuse-bouche would literally parse to "mouth amuser". And that interpretation would not be totally off the mark.

An amuse-bouche is a bite-sized starter served free to a guest, to prepare the guest for the meal and to offer a preview of the chef’s style.

An amuse-bouche might look the same as an appetizer, but it’s pretty different in philosophy: unlike an appetizer, an amuse-bouche is not ordered by the guest from the menu and is not to be paid for. It is served as the chef wishes, gratis, and is meant as a surprise for the guest.

The *bite-sized* aspect of the chef’s selection might sometimes be taken to funny extremes, as Chandler Bing finds out here:

If you’re inspired enough to try making your own amuse-bouche, here’s a nice article with tips and ideas.

2. autolysis

Autolysis comes from Greek, meaning self-splitting. In biology, autolysis is the destruction of a cell through the action of its own enzymes.

What is this word doing in a food words list, you ask?

The technique of autolysis is used in baking for improving the texture, rise and flavor of bread.

To understand how autolysis (or its French cognate autolyse) works, I refer you to these lines from Bakery Bits:

It’s a deceptively simple process. Just combine the flour and water in a bowl and mix until no dry flour remains. Do not be tempted to knead.  Simply cover the bowl and leave it in a warm place for anything from 20 minutes to up to 3 hours.

During autolysis, the flour absorbs the water as it rests and gluten development starts. After autolysis, the dough becomes easier to shape and you end up with better bread.

Check out The French Loaf’s lesson on autolysis and The Country Loaf’s sourdough recipe for more.

3. bletting

Bletting is the softening of certain fleshy fruit – medlars and persimmons, for example – beyond ripening,  until the desired degree of sweetness/palatability is attained. According to this citation, Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly (1889) has this lucid explanation of the term:

"bletting" is the intermediate stage between maturity and decay, and is that yellowish woolliness of the fruit familiarly known as "mellowness."

After a bletting-compatible fruit has ripened, it is plucked and kept in storage.  The fruit’s flesh then blets i.e. goes through softening, along with an increase in sugars and a decrease in acids and tannins. During this process, the inside of the fruit typically turns dark and the fruit becomes edible.

In the picture above: unripe medlars flanking ripe (bletted) medlars. [Attribution: Takkk (Wikipedia)]

4. gobstopper

A gobstopper is a type of hard candy that dissolves slowly and lasts a long time in the mouth. If you try to outmanoeuvre it by biting in, you risk dental damage – that’s why gobstoppers are also called jawbreakers.

The word came into wider usage thanks to Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its everlasting gobstoppers.

When I first learned of the word, I was reminded of the Nepali hard cheese chhurpi – a classic savory variant of the gobstopper. A Nepali friend once brought me a pack from back home. I then spent a zany month eating through the stock of rock-solid cheese chunks. I would pop a chhurpi into my mouth post-lunch, savoring its flavor till tea time – the cheese would take a good three hours to dissolve completely.

5. kickshaw

No, that’s not a rickshaw that needs to be kick-started. A kickshaw is, according to OED online:

A fancy but insubstantial cooked dish, especially one of foreign origin.

Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary, true to form, carries a sharper definition:

A dish so changed by the cookery that it can scarcely be known.

The Guardian and The Old Foodie tell us more: kickshaw comes from the French quelque chose – "some odd thing or other" – and finds mention in centuries-old writing including Shakespeare’s description of a feast for Falstaff.

The word is marked (archaic) in modern dictionaries – I suggest we bring it back into circulation. I can’t think of an equivalent that conveys snarky dismissal of exotic food in quite the same way. It even rhymes with "pshaw"!

6. la verguenza

In Spanish, la vergüenza means "the shame" – and idiomatically refers to the last morsel of food on a serving plate that everyone’s too embarrassed to reach out for.

The prevalence of the untouched "decency piece" in any shared food arrangement is pretty universal. Here’s a tip: if you do not want lone pieces of cakes and pakoras to get wasted at a party, make small talk about la vergüenza. This effectively gets guests to laugh, overcome their bashfulness and lap everything up.

[I hear it’s called "manners bit" in English, but the term isn’t popular enough to find mention in the main dictionaries. More about la vergüenza on A Way with Words (5:02min audio)].

7. quiddany

Quiddany is a fruit preserve or jelly, in consistency between syrup and marmalade.

The word dates back to early 17th century, says the OED, and is near-extinct today. An online search gives me this link for an apricot and rose quiddany with an inviting photo accompanying it, but no recipe.

The root for “quiddany” is apparently the French codignat (fruit jelly). Why the shift in first syllable from “co” to “qui”, you ask? It’s probably because quiddany was often made with quince, and whoever crafted and titled the recipe had a thing for alliterations.

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