"With au jus" = with with the juice

[greygarious]

Just a heads up to the authors of the many posts which refer to eating/cooking meats "with au jus". This incorrect usage may result in your opinions being considered less valuable by others. I don't mean to be snarky, just offering a metaphorical "spinach in your teeth" aside to those who'd be embarrassed.

[Veggo]

The phrase is common parlance in the cafeteria at the Department of Redundancy Department.

[lil magill]

I've eaten there! I have the same thing everytime. Twice!

[Paulustrious]

You just reminded me of a sign that was in British Aerospace. It said...

Planning
Departm
ent

[virtualguthrie]

Do they serve cheese quesadilla's?

[sandylc]

Why the apostrophe in quesadillas? I want to know why people are doing this, not trying to pick on you.

[paulj]

I suspect this apostrophe is like the one used on "the 70's". It's a way of gluing the plural 's' on to a word that normally does not take a plural, either because it's a number or foreign. This apostrophe also appears on store names and surnames, often in an ambiguous plural/possessive context.

Think about how the apostrophe is used in "it's" - it's part of the contraction, gluing 'is' onto 'it'. Why don't we use the apostrophe in the possessive case "its"? I think the rule was invented to resolve an ambiguous situation. We don't pronounce the two "its" differently; but it helps when writing to make the distinction clear.

I'm not saying that such a usage is right, just that this may be how their minds are working.

[Parigi]

The worst of the genre is a bar in Paris, gone now, merci, called Jame's Joyce.

[TroyTempest]

Ha! I like that

[Mr Taster]

It's called the "grocers' apostrophe" and it always amuses me.

e.g. "Sale! Grape's 2 lbs/$1.00"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrop...

Mr Taster

[paulj]

That's an interesting article - the diverse, and often controversial, uses of the apostrophe. I wouldn't mind dropping all uses except for the glottal stop, where it has an actual phonetic value.

[linguafood]

Ha! What about the misuse of quotation marks at grocery stores? "Fresh" apples.

Makes ya think....

[sandylc]

Jame owns a Joyce?

[Parigi]

That must be what the bar name means !

[virtualguthrie]

Grammar mistake.

[sandylc]

Happens to the best of us! :-)

[c oliver]

Good point. Also a while back someone pointed out (not on CH) that you shouldn't be mixing/combining languages anyway. The example she gave was "double entendre" but I can't think of a food one offhand --- except au jus.

[TroyTempest]

I had a co-worker who used to go bonkers over Beef Fajitas saying it was redundant, and chicken fajita was impossible, being that the fajita was a cut of beef. According to the dictionary, it is a cut of meat, without the type of meat being specified, but i suspect originally that it was beef. Well, needless to say he never won this battle.

[chileheadmike]

Fajita = Skirt

[somervilleoldtimer]

Soup du jour of the day!

[BobB]

Whoever claimed that "double entendre" is mixing languages clearly doesn't speak French. "Double" is the same word, spelled the same way, in both English and French. It's pronounced differently, of course - the French sounds more like DOOB-lə - but the phrase itself is as completely French as bon appetit.

[Lizard]

I'm not sure I follow. The phrase, while using French words, is not used often in French (double sens is more typical-- and in fact, I think I've only ever heard double entendre used by English speakers), Meanwhile, bon appetit is used in the francophone nations I run around in.

[Parigi]

Lizard is right. The French do not say double entendre. They say double sens. They don't say nom de plume. They say nom de guerre. They don't say connoisseur. They say connaisseur.

[BobB]

Double sens is the modern usage. Looking into this further I find I was slightly incorrect - etymologically it appears that double entendre is actually a corruption of the older French phrase "à double entente." But in either case, "double" is both an English and a French word, so someone insisting it's purely English and shouldn't be mixed with French is clearly off base.

[Terrieltr]

PIN Number
ATM Machine
With au jus

I see it as all the same thing

[c oliver]

The same error.

[Atahualpa]

True, they are all highly irritating and bound to lead to either a poor first impression, or a reduced estimation, of you in the mind of those who are listening or reading your output.

[cinnamon girl]

PIN number sticks in my craw too along with:
SIN number (Canadian)
salsa sauce
lentils from du puy . . . groan
naan bread - don't we know it's bread?

[luckyfatima]

yep I was gonna say naan bread and chai tea. but y'all beat me to it.

[paulj]

what would be a more authentically Indian way of talking about 'chai tea' - a (soy) milk, spiced tea mix? If 'chai' just means tea, how do you add the spiced connotation? Some years ago, before 'chai' was a available in liter boxes, I bought a bottle of 'chai massala', a mix of cardamom, ginger, etc., i.e. a spice mix intended for use in 'chai'.

[thew]

masala chai.

but then that's the way 99% of the tea in india is served so it's what you usually get if you just say chai - you have to specify if you want lemon tea, or no milk or whatever

[DeppityDawg]

But there are many many kinds of masala. So you should be sure to specify that you want "chai masala" chai. And to be absolutely sure, "masala chai masala chai". Etc.

[luckyfatima]

No, everyone would get what you mean if you said masala chai. Though the specifics of the exact spices use could vary, they would all be within the acceptable range of what spices go in spiced tea.

No one is going to put, say, goda masala or sambar masala in your chai. I promise. :-)

[Scrofula]

No, most tea in India is not served spiced. When you just say 'chai', most people assume you're talking about strong black tea with plenty of milk and probably sugar.

[thew]

i have to say in all my years in india that has not been my experience. most of the tea in india is served in small chai shops, or by roadside chai wallahs, not in fancy restaurants. i would say, that in my experience 99% of those have at least a little spice mixed in the tea.

[Scrofula]

I'd guess that more tea is brewed at home than by chaiwallahs, and I've rarely seen people brew their day-to-day tea with masala. I haven't had a lot of chai shop tea, so I can't comment on how common it is for those to be spiced, though it seems plausible.

[luckyfatima]

Yes, it would be masala chai as thew says.

[jumpingmonk]

from the cheesemarket
"sheep's milk pecorino"
"goat's milk chevre"

[somervilleoldtimer]

I used to work at the TAB Building, i.e. Tufts Administration Building Building

[antimony]

the hoi polloi

that's the one that gets me.

[paulj]

Don't be so hoi polloi, oops, I mean hoity-toity! :)

[DeppityDawg]

Also, we should never say "the alcohol" or "the alfalfa" because the "al-" part already means "the", right?

All languages are full of quirky little mistakes and imperfections. That's what's so great about them.

People are always looking for reasons to consider others' opinions less valuable. That's what's so awful about them.

[c oliver]

I don't believe that's the breakdown of the word "alcohol" (isn't it based on alkyls or something?). I used to feed my horses alfalfa but I don't know its English origin. But I would say that something that has changed, if these have, over hundreds of years is quite a bit different than saying "with au jus." I wouldn't consider someone's opinion less valuable but it would be a tad fingernail-on-the-blackboard-ish.

[jumpingmonk]

It and alfalfa are actually from arabic. I think the al- prefix mes best or best of. Alfalfa come from al-fash-fash which basically means "best of fodders (things you feed animals, like horses)". Alcohol comes from al-kohl "best of kohls" (an black arseinide of antimony, one popular as an eye makeup. and orginaly simply meant a distillate done with heat so tecnically alchol as we undersantd it isnt reduntant it's insufficent (back when it was still a new idea it often was called "alcohol of wine")

[Veggo]

I guess not all "al"s share the same etymology. Al Capone liked his alcohol neat and his pasta al dente.

[danieljdwyer]

"Al" is the definite article in Arabic. It is not, however, redundant to say "the alcohol", because the Arabic word is "al-kuhl". "Alcohol" is an English word. Once a word or term is assimilated to a language, it has a distinct meaning within that language, and functions by the grammatical rules of that language.

[hannaone]

Blame it on the great number of places that serve dishes "...with au jus sauce".

[DeppityDawg]

But that would actually be correct (sort of), if they made the sauce with the jus.

[c oliver]

Good point, DD :)

[scuzzo]

You're not snarky! I'm glad to learn and welcome it.

Saying "cheese with fish is forbidden" is snarky and makes me immediately want to dust my salmon with parmesan! Saying "from my experience, cheese interferes with the flavor is fish", makes me think twice, and you have my attention.

Lots of grammatical errors go mainstream, not making them right, like referring to "the 80's" instead of "the 80s". Because something is widely accepted never makes it right. At one point it was widely accepted that the world was flat.

[c oliver]

It's how we learn,isn't it? I didn't know about fish and cheese until a few years to. And once I did, I agreed.

[scuzzo]

I do love to learn...which is why I come here! I so appreciate the many smart, kind and helpful people who hang out here.

[sandylc]

Mornay Sauce on salmon. An exception to every rule.

[pikawicca]

Really? Where have you seen this? Seems very strange to me. Why would you put a rich sauce on a rich fish?

[sandylc]

Eighties. You're right; very rich. But delicious. Indulgence from an indulgent era.

[smartie]

sole mornay too, and sole florentine with spinach and a mornay sauce

[Paulustrious]

<<Because something is widely accepted never makes it right.>>

Actually it does it make it right. The OED will take in new meanings of existing words wih no problem. Speech patterns change with each generation and with absorption of new cultural values. Your use of commas in the previous sentence is a move in English to represent pauses in speech as opposed to a purely grammatic positioning - a move which I approve of. (cf: a move of which I approve). The grating we all feel is when a new expression seems an uneducated and unnecessary nouveau addition, adoption or amendment to the gemütlich status quo of our language.

Incidentally, throughout history most reasonably advanced civilisations thought the world.

We willingly accept certain phrases such as radar detection, laser radiation or ac current and they are not incorrect. The purpose of language is ultimately to convey information. It should not be held on a pedestal of inviolability, else we would all still be speaking Chaucerian English or some proto-Sumerian language.

And of course we should mix languages. One of the huge strengths of English is / was its ability to cherry pick from other languages.

[c oliver]

But wouldn't you agree that "with au jus" is always going to be wrong?

[Paulustrious]

I think it's because you speak some (maybe a lot) of French. For all I know Bahn Mi may mean 'with bread' and I would be perfectly happy to say with "bahn mi sandwiches".

But you are right, 'with au jus' grates on me too. It doesn't exist in England, and I am yet to see it in Canada.

I just realised I missed a word out of my previous reply. It should have read:

<throughout history most reasonably advanced civilisations thought the world round - with occasional doctrinal flatitudes. >

[DeppityDawg]

That's a really long word.

[Agent Orange]

Not if "au jus" comes to mean "meat drippings" in English. Like Paulustrious said, knowing a bit of French (in this case) allows one to see an obvious error. I am a bit of an English grammar freak, and that also extends to French and Spanish. But given even the slightest chance, I would ignorantly butcher hundreds of foreign languages.

[shaogo]

Re: "Because something is widely accepted never makes it right."

I concur with Paulustrious. In a recent column regarding deceased NY Times word maven William Safire, they reiterated that Safire, for all his "usage policing," admitted that English is a living language and that words tend to begin to mean what people using them *intend* them to mean.

"with au jus" is, indeed, wrong, however, any way you slice it. (Here I'm anticipating a query from the delightful c oliver)

-- addenda: I just read farther down the thread. alanbarnes can be *my* William Safire anytime!

[thew]

in language widely accepted indeed does eventually make it right.

to go back to my oft stated examples - if you tell me you have a terrific meal, do you mean it induced terror in you? Do you think less of someone who says sunrise, even though it isn;t the sun moving?

[iluvtennis]

Good points.

[rockandroller1]

But what about the Filet O' Fish? :)

[paulj]

That's to distinguish it from their filet de bœuf sandwich.

[johnb]

But does the filet de bœuf sandwich come with aujus sauce?

[jfood]

but you can get the filet sandwich with or without the bone

[therealdoctorlew]

Actually, in the very standard pedantic English punctuation rules, the plural of a symbol or abbreviation or a number as a thing does indeed take an apostrophe. "80's" is correct.

[EWSflash]

scuzzo, I'm pretty sure that if you were determined to use apostrophes when saying
"the 80's" instead of "the 80s"
you could say "the '80s", since you are truncating the 1980s.

There's a site called toothpastefordinner.com that has some pretty great cartoons. One is a guy hawking apostrophes. He's shouting "Apostrophes, get your apostrophes! Use 'em for plurals, get your apostrophes here..."

[chowser]

I haven't had a french dip in over 15 years but this thread is making me crave one. Here's an interesting discussion on improperly used terms, including au jus. Pass me an apple pie with a la mode...

http://www.takeourword.com/TOW146/pag...

[cinnamon girl]

lol . . . and how did a la mode ever come to mean ice cream anyway?

[scubadoo97]

Yeah I don't see a problem. Don't they sell that au jus sauce in a bottle. So what's the problem? hehe

Give me some of that meat loaf with that there au jus sauce. Anything wrong with that? And throw on some of that brushetta stuff too.

[modthyrth]

My best friend declared that she was my best friend one night at a restaurant, when I had ordered prime rib "with au jus." When my plate came, there was no jus, and I exclaimed, "Hey, my prime rib didn't come with with with juice!" My friend declared her undying affection for me then and there.

[paulj]

Does this (and the other examples) qualify as an idiom, a phrase that is best understood through common usage, as opposed to the literal meaning of its pieces?

'au jus' in French is a prepositional phrase, but 'au' is not an English preposition.

Or another way to look at it, 'au jus' has entered the English language as a noun, meaning effect, 'an unthickened gravy', as opposed to an adjective. So English speakers who are not thinking in terms of its French roots, feel a need to add the 'with'. I think the example of the Arabic 'al' is quite relevant. Quite often linguistic details are lost (changed) when a word or phrase is transferred from one language to another.

The English is language is quite forgiving when borrowing words. For exaple, we don't insist on adding a 'o' or 'a' gender marker on every word. But that borrowing can also be sloppy.

[chowser]

Technically, "au jus" is an adjective. In French, that follows the verb but in English, it precedes it so we should have au jus roast beef, not roast beef au jus. Getting too technical makes it sound stupid pretty.

As for borrowing "o" or "a" endings, we do, if the word is Italian. Pizza, not pizzo or pizz. And we don't do it to every word because not every word is Italian based. English tends to borrow the word as is but use its own grammatical structure eg if you want to make pizza plural, we wouldn't follow Italian grammar and call it pizze. Given how amalgamated English is, we'd have to be fluent in too many languages to conjugate every word in its original language.

[paulj]

In 'beef au jus', is 'au jus' modifying beef, or beef modifying 'au jus'?

Or is that like trying to pick apart 'beef wellington'?

[c oliver]

Oh, cool, this is REALLY getting to be fun!!!

[chowser]

LOL, there are restaurants that serve more au jus thanbeef. Bourgignon boeuf?

[Parigi]

beef modifying 'au jus'?
That'd be jus au beef, duh !

[paulj]

In English, the modifier usually is placed before the noun. For example, 'beef steak'. An English speaker who does not know French, could very well take 'au jus' as the noun, and beef as the adjective. Yes, I know 'au jus' is written as two words, but it is usually pronounced as a two syllable word.

[Parigi]

"usually pronounced as a two syllable word"

Usually? The way "on the cob" is pronounced as a 3 syllable word, - usually, - modifying corn? How does one distinguish the pronunciation of 2 words with one syllable each, and one 2-syllable word, usually? And so White House is - usually - pronounced as a two-syllable word? Then what isn't?

[paulj]

Those are all phrases. They may be spoken with the same rapidity as a word, but they are clearly composed of several words. 'on the cob', could easily be changed to 'in the cob', 'on the corn', changing the meaning, but not the syntactic structure of the phrase.

I couldn't modify 'au jus' without delving into French.

[sandylc]

French class. 1975. "Au jus" translates to "with the jus". One meaning for "au" is "with the". Done.

[BobB]

Yup. Right up there with "the hoi polloi." Hoi polloi means "the people" so the hoi polloi is the the people.

[paulj]

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/18...
points out that the earliest English use, from 1668, includes the extra 'the':

"If by the people you understand the multitude, the οἱ πολλοί"

And the use of the Arabic 'al' article has already been mentioned

[BobB]

That's one point of view, and one with which I happen to disagree. Call me pedantic if you must, you won't be the first.

I also draw a distinction between Arabic words that have been adopted into the language as English with "al" appended (e.g., alcohol, algebra) vs compound phrases such as Al Jazeera or Al Qaida (not to mention al dente). Hoi polloi to my ear falls into the latter category. But feel free to use "the" with it if it sounds better to you.

[Parigi]

It really means "in its own juice". after all, the juice doesn't come from somewhere else and is added to the meat. :-)

[sandylc]

It translates to "with the jus". Really.

[linguafood]

Wouldn't that be "avec jus"?

[sandylc]

I think avec is "with". "Au" is "with THE". Again, old high school French, but a VERY picky teacher!

[jumpingmonk]

Then wouldn't "au naturale" mean with the nature or "with the natural state" or can "au" aslo mean "IN the"

[DeppityDawg]

It's "au naturel", and that's a different construction in French ("naturel" is an adjective, while "jus" is a noun).

[sandylc]

Yeah, "au" has several literal meanings; can't remember what they all are. A multi-purpose word. Something like "to the" "at the" "with the", etc.

[Parigi]

"'Au jus" may be wrongly used by some English-speakers as a noun, but not by all.
In Antwerp a waiter assured me that "everyone around here" understood that "wok" means food that is sautéed, hence the resto's menu offering different woks: beef wok, chicken wok, etc. I told him I was from the country that invented the wok and thought the usage was comical. He insisted that everyone in Antwerp understood the word differently.
So I ordered a glass. He asked: a glass of what? I told him it was understood in MY country.

And can one talk about "forgiving" when one is borrowing? In fact is France the one who should be forgiven for "au jus"?

[paulj]

Re. 'forgiving' - would 'non-pedantic' be a better word?

[Parigi]

It's like chili con carne with (or is it without) meat.

[cookie monster]

Or a chai tea latte - mixing three languages to get tea with milk and spices tea with hot milk.

[thew]

especially as chai just means tea anyway

[paulj]

Stimulated by the 'tisane' complaint below I looked up 'tea'. Turns out there is 1 Chinese character, but two quite different words (depending on the Chinese language). Some other languages borrowed the 'te' word, others the 'chai' word. English took 'tea', but in recent years as adopted the Indian 'chai' to mean an Indian style spiced tea (masala chai), with milk and spices. So in American English, 'chai' is not synonymous with 'tea'; it goes back to the same Chinese character, but the path into English has been different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea#The_...

Etymology gives interesting information on a word, but it is seldom sufficient to define it, or to explain its contemporary usage.

[Parigi]

"Turns out there is 1 Chinese character, but two quite different words (depending on the Chinese language). "

Chai - 茶 - is indeed a regional pronunciation of "tea", a region in China that exports tea, in fact. In standard (Mandarin) pronunciation and also in Cantonese, it is "cha".
I would not call them different words.

[paulj]

But the article claims that in some dialects the pronunciation is closer to the 'te' that many European languages (including English) adopted.

[Parigi]

Well yes China has more than 2 dialects. :-)
While té is used to mean tea in some European countries, Chai is the word used to mean tea not only in India but also in Greece and Turkey, and possibly many other other countires on or near the Silk Route.

"Turns out there is 1 Chinese character, but two quite different words (depending on the Chinese language). "

Té, Chai, Cha are different ways of pronouncing the same word "茶". They are not different words.

[paulj]

I was using 'different words' in the sense of a 'fairly large difference in pronunciation'. That of course is a fuzzy use, especially in a language like Chinese where a wide range of spoken dialects are united by one non-phonetic written language.

[paulj]

[In the late 17th c] " Served primarily to men, it was first called Cha, from the Cantonese slang for tea. The name changed later to Tay, or Tee, when the British trading post moved from Canton to Amoy, where the word for tea is T'e (Ukers 1935: 23)."
http://www.panix.com/~kendra/tea/tea_...

[Parigi]

Cha is not slang. It is the actual pronunciation for the word 茶. It is pronounced by the Fukienese (Amoy region) as something like té. The same character, pronounced by the Xijiang people in the north, becomes chai. No matter how the English transcription for the character changed, the character in Chinese has never changed. If Hu Jintao or IM Pei or Zhang Yimou offers you a cup of the stuff today, he will call it cha, and there's nothing slangy about it.

[jumpingmonk]

Actualy I head that the "Te" pronociation is the older of the two. in the very early days of China (when tea was 1. still a bit of a novelty and 2. still made into bricks before it was ground up to be used) the character was pronuced someting like "t'u". I dont think the "t'cha" or "cha" pronociation became common until around the Ming dynasty (or maybe it was the T'ang), when tea began to become a mainstream and everyday commodity in China

[Parigi]

My reply disappeared.
A linguistics prof liked to use the example of cha 茶 as a word that underwent the least historic evolution, and it sounds the same between Mandarin and Cantonese. His theory was that 1000 to 200 years ago, the dialect spoken in Chang An (capital for most of that time) was closer to modern Cantonese than modern Mandarin. Another hint is that all the Tang poems are better rhymed in Cantonese than in Mandarin.
As for me, I dunno. None of us were around then, and there is no recording. :-)

[Veggo]

Enlighten me. What do I say if I don't want the f**king juice?

[c oliver]

I think you say "with no f**king au jus."

[RobinJ]

...or you could be a helluva snob, order prime rib sans jus, and confuse your server no end.

Salsa sauce and queso cheese: Those phrases bother me, but I recognize the people don't know what they are saying.

[c oliver]

Or even brie cheese. Or is there some other food that's brie?

[Paulustrious]

Salsbrie steak.
Bluebrie pie.
Brieoche

[c oliver]

Hohoho

[Veggo]

And for dessert I'll order creme brulee sans foie gras and really trick 'em.

[FrankD]

I'm willing to bet you've just given Martin Picard at "Au Pied du Cochon" in Montreal an idea....

[rcianci]

Foie gras creme brulee is more common in Montreal than you think. Oddly enough Martin Picard does not serve it.

[FrankD]

Geez, I need to get out more!

[mcsheridan]

On the flip side, the current Velveeta commercial bothers me no end. Man runs into a beauty parlor begging: "Queso...I need queso! Please!" He doesn't mean "I need cheese"; what he means is "I need Chili con queso." So a woman with foil hair dye strips on her head (perhaps she's his wife; we're never quite sure) jumps out of her chair, runs into the kitchen in back (huh?) and from a pantry stocked with nothing else but Velveeta boxes and Rotel cans, takes one of each. She then cubes up the Velveeta, opens a can of Rotel Diced Tomatoes and Green Chiles, mixes them in a bowl and then heats them up in the microwave. We then see her dipping a taco chip into it and feeding this man who, satisfied, runs out of the shop (with the bowl in hand, mind you.)

The tag line: Rotel and Velveeta: together, they make queso.
NO, they make Chili con queso.

[Paulustrious]

<<The tag line: Rotel and Velveeta: together, they make queso.
NO, they make Chili con queso.>>

Sorry - I'm going to have to disagree with that. I'm not quite sure what they make. It's a long time since I did any chemical engineering.

[mcsheridan]

Point well taken. They (and I) used the term "queso" too loosely when considering this Kraft 'food product'. I was only quibbling with the dropped words and the abuse of language, not the authenticity of the item.

[small h]

<They (and I) used the term "queso" too loosely when considering this Kraft 'food product'.>

You're not the first. This caused me no end of confusion a couple of years ago.

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/3817...

[paulj]

Context, context. Yes if you mention 'queso' in a Spanish speaking country, they understand it to be 'cheese'. But what if you ask for it in a TexMex restaurant? Will the waitress as 'Do you mean 'Chile con Queso' or plain Queso'?

From Wiki:
"Chile con queso (Spanish for "chile with cheese"), usually known simply as queso, is an appetizer that is served in Tex-Mex restaurants....
Chile con queso is called "queso" by Texans. It should not be confused with "cheese dip," an inaccurate colloquialism used by people unfamiliar with Tex-Mex cuisine."

How about chili? Should we insist that everyone return to 'chile con carne'? or Carne de res con chiles rojo al estilo Texas'?

By the way, is it Chile con queso, or Chili con queso? Chili, with the 'i', often is reserved to the TexMex meat stew, not just anything with chile peppers in it.

Is 'chile pepper' a redundancy?

[paulj]

If we are going to insist on an accurate Spanish description, how about 'queso ameriicano con tomates y chiles'? Isn't cheese (or cheese product) the dominant ingredient? It's not 'peppers with a bit a cheese'.

[c oliver]

I think I'll stick with chorizo fundido :)

[paulj]

What's that, molten sausage? :)

'hierro fundido' gets a lot of attention on Chow, especially under cookware. It means 'cast iron'.

[c oliver]

There's a place we've been going to in a small town in Southern Oregon. All Mexican-Americans own it andwork there. They may their own chorizo, mix it cheese, put into a cazuela and heat til bubbling. We get it with a mixture of vegetables that have been grilled and whole jalapenos that are dropped in to hot oil til all brown and bumpy. So good.

[just_M]

Care to share where? I live in Southern Oregon and would love a go to. Thanks.

[c oliver]

It's in Grants Pass on H between 6th and 7th. Taqueria. They probably also serve it at their resto, Si Casa Flores on the Rogue Parkway. We love it especially with a big ole Margarita.

[just_M]

Thanks, it sounds so good I can't wait for our next trip Medford way!

[alanbarnes]

Not sayin' it's right, but...

At Tex-mex places in Austin if you order "queso" in a restaurant you'll get something resembling the stuff being advertised on the commercial. If you order "chile con queso" you're likely to get it with a layer of spiced ground beef (aka "chili meat") on top. Course then there's Bob Armstrong dip, which adds a layer of guacamole. They're all good food for drunken students.

[Ellen]

Oh my God I used to love that stuff in college. One of the first things I learned to cook, although that's an oxymoron rather than a redundancy.

[EWSflash]

I'll have a quesadilla without cheese, please.

[chowser]

With queso cheese on the side?

[paulj]

Yes there is 'queso' (cheese) in the word 'quesadilla', but that does not mean it is a required part of the filling. Particularly in central and southern Mexico, quesadillas are made with freshed rolled disks of (corn) masa. It is easy to fine authentic recipes (e.g. from Kennedy or Bayless) for fillings that do not include any cheese. Crumbled queso fresco may be sprinkled over the top (after cooking).

This is a case where a little knowledge of source language is actually misleading.

[paulj]

Is that like asking for a hamburger without the smoked pork?

[Parigi]

You don't want f**king juice?
Everyone knows this one. You say mit-out au jus.

[Veggo]

Not every server should be expected to know german, french, and english.
I think thew nailed it with a bit of universal language.

[Paulustrious]

Out should be spelled uit, then we can go Dutch together.

[Withnail42]

I've noticed and chuckled at that usage myself.

[cuccubear]

The usage is a tautology, the needless repetition of something in different words, as in: widow woman. The word widow implies female, so the following word “woman” is unnecessary. “With au jus” is just as redundant.

Clearly the folks who use “with au jus” are not familiar with the French language, and I can understand that. I hear many people who say “No problemo” trying to espeaka de Spanish, but the word is “problema”. I used to correct people, but then figured “What the hell” and let it go. I found it was too boorish of me to correct them on such a niggling detail when they didn’t know (or were even interested in) Spanish to begin with.

They same can be said in this case, although the phrase “with au jus” has produced this very entertaining thread! So I’ll keep reading as I sip my Burgundy Red or maybe a nice Chardonnay White..?

[Veggo]

I agree. If everyone had anally exact correctness, life would lean toward boring. Our human foibles add a lot of fun!

[cuccubear]

They cer-tain-ly do! !

[scuzzo]

I really enjoy learning, but some people take the fun out of it.

[kattyeyes]

WORD! But learning about a variety of uses for the waffle iron--among many other tips--is what restores the fun to the party. So thank you, scuzzo. Party on!

[scuzzo]

Thank you so much! Your kindness really made my day, in ways you'll never know.

[cinnamon girl]

I've cited you, by name, . . . er soubriquet, on the waffle iron - along with Greygarious. I cooked everything on that thing this summer. Someone asked me if I could still make waffles on it so I even tried that. Boring.

[scuzzo]

I don't know you, but I love you! Thanks! Can't stop laughing.

[jumpingmonk]

Actually I'm not sure"Burgundy Red" would count as a tautology as there are white wines (and even a few roses) made within the Burgundy region.

[cuccubear]

LOL, you know, I wondered about that myself, and figured someone would have something to say about it! :-)

Okay, bad example...

[FrankD]

Puligny-Montrachet. Pouilly-Fuisse. Macon. Meursault.

All of these are famous white wines from Burgundy.

[susan1353]

Tuna fish

MLB Baseball

[paulj]

But if you don't add the 'fish' someone might think you are talking about a cactus fruit, or male-specific medical procedure. :) See the Wiki 'Tuna (disambiguation)' page for details.

[susan1353]

Yeah, don't you hate when that happens?

[cinnamon girl]

OMG - I've wondered about this for years . . . why many people say tuna fish that is. Glad I logged on today.

[BobB]

This is just speculation, but we may have gotten that from immigrants who transferred it that way from their native tongue. In German, for example, "thunfisch" is one word.

[danieljdwyer]

I think you're right that it's a Germanic pattern, but it's not a recent development. I am pretty sure the use of tunafish (probably originally tunnyfisc) predates the use of tuna or tunny in English. The names of fish in Old and Middle English all seem to end in "fisc" and then later "fish", just like the names of fish in other Germanic languages often do. Salmon, for example, was originally læxfisc. The first part of each name seems to have originally described a characteristic of the fish. These have mostly been lost, however, as our modern names tend to come from Romance languages, but would initially have kept the "-fish" ending pattern when adopted in to English. Interesting, we dropped our original name for salmon, "læxfisc", close to a thousand years ago, only to have the closely related word "lox" reenter the lexicon in the last century or so.

[BobB]

Well, that came back to us from Yiddish, which got it from the German "lachs."

[danieljdwyer]

Right, and "læx", "lox", "lachs", and so forth, all ultimately trace back to the Old High German "lahs", and theoretically to a Proto-German word before that, which has been reconstructed as "laxsaz".In any case, I find it a funny coincidence.

[Paulustrious]

When I heard Americanos talking about OJ I thought it was just an abbreviation for 'au jus'. I thought it was rather an odd thing to have for breakfast. Especially the freshly squeezed variety.

[therealdoctorlew]

Thirty years later my wife and I still get a kick out of recalling the restaurant somewhere near Yosemite that had steak "with deliciious Aujus Sauce." (punctuation as originally presented)

[pikawicca]

If I were in France and saw a menu item described as "avec au jus," I'd be worried. I live, however, in the USA, and do not expect that everyone speaks every language perfectly. In a French restaurant in the US, I'd expect them to get this right, likewise an Italian restaurant should train their servers how to pronounce "bruschetta." In an American casual dining place, however, I have no pronunciation expectations.

[scuzzo]

I'm still not sure how to pronounce "bruschetta".

[c oliver]

I'm almost positive it's "bru-sketta." Is that right, people?

[scuzzo]

I did look it up, and you are right. But I do hear lots of variations!

[Parigi]

"I do hear lots of variations!"
Not in Italy, there's no pronunciation variation re bruschetta

[greygarious]

Yes, in Italian (courtesy of a 3wk immersion course in college):
sch = sk
sc = sh
ch = k
ci = chee
ce = cheh
sce = sheh
There's not a sound like "ch" in "church", but the pronunciation of "gg" is close. Double consonants are pronounced with extra stress and a forceful expulsion of air as the following letter is enunciated.

[Mr Taster]

What about a fake Italian place like The Olive Garden where they train their chefs in Tuscany? Would you be put off if they mispronounced "bruschetta"?

Mr Taster

[Parigi]

"Would you be put off if they mispronounced "bruschetta"?"
Not at all because I can't think of any reason for being there unless I am kidnapped, in which case I wouldn't be put off by any mispronunciation.

[FrankD]

A couple of days ago, I heard Guy Fieri on his "Big Bite" show saying he was going to make "au jus gravy". The remote just kept flipping..

[paulj]

I just noticed at the grocery a half dozen different au jus gravy or sauce mixes - most noticeably "Johnny's French Dip Concentrated Au Jus Sauce,"

That's a pretty clear sign that 'au jus' has taken on, in English, an identity that goes beyond the French roots.

[greygarious]

I prefer the mixes made by Paula's sister, Phyllis Deen ;-D.

[ricepad]

It took me a sec, but I got it...!

[Normandie]

(To FrankD)

Not only does he go on and on about "au jus gravy", Frank, he also incessantly refers to "the au jus".

I really don't like to be petty, but....Aaaaaaaggghhhhhhhh.

Does FN have no technical advisors?

[brandywiner]

Sure they do: Guy Fieri, for example....

[sandylc]

Yeah, although there is probably a place for Triple D (as covered in another thread), Guy really mangles most languages.

[foodiesnorth]

Thank you to all..you have managed to mix my two favourite topics...food and etymology. I don't think I have enjoyed or laughed at a thread on this board as much as I have for this one.

My position aligns with those who note that langauge is not static and that adopting a word or phrase from one language into another means that the word or phrase loses the rules that apply from it's original language and becomes subject to the rules of its adopted language. As such, "au jus" becomes an english phrase and it becomes proper to use the English rules. "With "au jus" seem perfectly fine to me as an English speaker but, frankly, the food snob in me - and the influence of a bilingual country (Canada) - means I will never depart from simply "au jus".

Now: intra language doubling up drives me crazy. The "PIN numbers" and "ATM machines"" etc are examples of poor speech and should be grounds for charging someone.

[Gio]

I Love This Thread!

Now, what do you say about people who use "au jus" when speaking about vegetables?

[Caitlin McGrath]

I think they line up behind people who talk about vegetable tartares and carpaccios. But I don't really mind those transpositions.

[somervilleoldtimer]

Soup du jour of the day! (Probably already appeared 1,000 times above, but I haven't read through them all.)

[linguafood]

Ugh. Just read a resto review in the New Yorker by Andrea Thompson, saying something was served 'with au jus sauce'. I always thought the NYer had higher standards...

[greygarious]

In the last several years I have noticed several errors in punctuation, spelling, and syntax, so I am not surprised. I let my subscription run out last month. Did she think the food was awesome or "yummo"?

[linguafood]

Haha, no. I generally like her reviews, but that just rubbed me wrong. I guess I can overlook the occasional errors if I could get over the weird double vowel ¨ thingee the NYer does...

[EWSflash]

I would have thought so , too.

[kagoo]

I came late to this post, but I have to add one of my favorites: Years ago, in a restaurant in the Poconos, they had "celery au blu" on the menu.

[jumpingmonk]

One of my mom's favorite food stories was when she went to Antione's in New Orleans (the Oysters Rockefeller place) and one of the liasted appetizers was "Fromage du creme du Phillidelphie" curios she order it and was served....Philadelphia brand cream cheese! I actually didnt beleive this story when she told it but she saved the menu and she's right that's what they wrote.

[BobB]

One of my less-favorite French restaurants in Boston (you know who you are, PRB!) offers a variation on paté de foie gras prepared "au microonde." Being in the communications business I know that microonde is French for microwave, so I asked the server - sure enough, it's prepared in the microwave. Why the chef insists on bragging about this on the menu is beyond me (the server, too, was mystified by that). It wasn't even very good - creamy but bland, with only a hint of foie gras flavor.

[FrankD]

Somehow, I can just see someone going home and telling a friend that they had the
"patty de foy grass o my-kroon-dee", and that it was just great....

[thew]

no reason it shouldn't be

[Fydeaux]

While you have a point (and the number of responses you have received suggests that it is a valid one), for my part, I can think of very few things less important that this. I favour substance over style.

[Parigi]

CH itself has a "most popular" video titled "how to sous vide an egg at home". Will a recipe for "the best au jus" be far behind?

[tehtroll]

It personally offends my sensibilities when someone asks for tea, but what they really want is a tisane or herbal infusion. Tea is only tea if it contains the leaves from the camelia sinensis plant. Any number of other inappropriate uses of words tend to annoy me. Biscotti is another such instance.

A fine example of companies not being aware of etymolgy:
- Coit the blinds cleaning company (Think coitus)
- Ford naming a car the "Nova" in mexico and wondering why no one purchased it (Who would buy a car that didn't go?)

[paulj]

http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

"Hercule Poirot: Miss Lemon, yesterday was yesterday. My tisane, if you please."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0676188/q...

[frannieface77]

I adore Poirot.

[acgold7]

The Nova was a GM (Chevy) car, not Ford.

[greygarious]

Well then, will we be seeing a Troll vs. Martha battle over gardeners' manure tea?

[Parigi]

There is basically not much one can do re a person who goes out of his way to grab offense, any offense. Such offendees surely enjoy the offense.

[sedimental]

Yeah, well...I take offense at people that take offense at offenders of language offenses...or is that offense's?

Goot Lawd, I must have too much time on my hands today to even be reading this thread :)

[brandywiner]

Not to accelerate the thread drift, but the cleaning company apparently comes by its name honestly. It was started in San Francisco, in the same neighborhood as Coit Tower, which in turn was bequeathed to the city by one Lillie Hitchcock Coit.

Now, about the shape of that tower....

[Veggo]

It's OK, bw, your Coit didn't interrupt us.

[ferventfoodie]

Rachel Ray used to drive me nuts with her references to "slaw salad". Someone must have
told her that "slaw" is salad, because I haven't heard her use it recently - but I rarely watch
her anymore. Also seem to recall her saying 'EVOO oil" in early shows.

[sandylc]

Around these parts, it's "bread rolls".

[pine time]

Just today, a restaurant proudly listed "cafe au lait with milk." I had one, and no, it didn't have a double milk portion.

[goodhealthgourmet]

i was just watching an old episode of Chopped, and one of the chefs said she was making a "ragu sauce." i told her that ragu *means* sauce, but she didn't respond :)

[paulj]

One Italian cookbook claims 'ragu' comes from the French 'ragoûter' - 'to restore or stimulate the appetite'.

[goodhealthgourmet]

so does the French ragoût (obviously). but the issue here is definition, not etymology...and i'm willing to bet that source you cited *defines* a ragu as something along the lines of a tomato-based meat sauce typically served with pasta, and a ragoût as a thick meat or fish stew.

for the record, she was preparing a pumpkin-based sauce with no pasta in sight.