Culinary name

Culinary names, menu names, or kitchen names are names of foods used in the preparation or selling of food, as opposed to their names in agriculture or in scientific nomenclature. The menu name may even be different from the kitchen name. For example, from the 19th until the mid-20th century, many restaurant menus were written in French and not in the local language.

Examples include veal (calf), calamari (squid), and sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus gland). Culinary names are especially common for fish and seafood, where multiple species are marketed under a single familiar name.

Foods may come to have distinct culinary names for a variety of reasons:

 Euphemism: the idea of eating some foods may disgust or offend some eaters regardless of their actual taste
 Testicles: Rocky Mountain oysters, Prairie oysters, lamb fries, or animelles
 Fish Milt:  soft roe or white roe to disguise that is actually sperm not eggs
 Thymus gland and pancreas gland: sweetbreads
 Kangaroo meat:  "Australus" has been proposed as a euphemism
 Attractiveness: the traditional name may be considered dull, undistinctive, or unattractive
 Kiwifruit:  a rename of the Chinese gooseberry, which references its fuzzy brown skin, and has now become its standard name
 Mahi-Mahi:  the dolphinfish is often referred to with this name to avoid confusion with dolphin (the mammal) meat
 The Patagonian toothfish is marketed as the Chilean sea bass
 The African Cichlid found in many aquaria is presented as Tilapia
 The spinal marrow of veal and beef is called amourettes
 Grouping of a variety of sources under a single name
 Tuna includes several different species
 Evocation of more prestigious, rarer, and more expensive foods for which they are a substitute
 Lumpsucker (or lumpfish) roe is named lumpfish caviar
 Cassia bark is called cinnamon
 Langostino is sometimes called lobster or "langostino lobster"
 In North America, many flounder species are called soles, e.g. Microstomus pacificus is named "Dover sole"
 Evocation of a specific culinary tradition
 Shrimp in Italian-American contexts is often called scampi
 Florentine refers to dishes that include spinach
 Squid is often called by its Italian name, calamari, on menus
 Social differences
 The words beef, veal, pork, mutton, venison and poultry are derived from the words used by the French-speaking lords in post-Conquest England
 Other
 In French, chestnuts are called châtaignes on the tree, but marrons in the kitchen
 Laver is a culinary name for certain edible algae

See also

 Trade name
 Brand

Notes

Bibliography

 "Culinary terminology" in Oxford Companion to Food, 1st edition, s.v.
 Andre Simon, A concise encyclopedia of gastronomy mentions 16 different 'culinary names' passim

Category:Names
Category:Food and drink terminology
Category:Culinary arts
Category:Culinary terminology