Incongruently-named/Silly/Misleading Recipe Names

[mamachef]

Have you ever seen a recipe that led you to believe it was something other than it was? Today, I was leafing through a fairly recent edition of a women's magazine, and noticed a recipe for "Spring Fling Salad," which name wants to make me grit my teeth anyway. (Too cutesy.) To my suprise, it called for chopped apples, walnuts, diced pears and a cider-mayo dressing, similar to Waldorf salad, give or take.
To me this salad doesn't speak to Spring at all, mainly because I don't remotely associate those ingredients with that season. Of course they're available all year long, but I'm talking truly seasonal here, the point being, why in the world would somebody think that was a good name for this salad?
Got any others? Silly Recipe titles? Misleads?

[LorenM]

...or shrimp with lobster sauce...with no lobster. Hamburger contains no ham (I know- named after Hamburg, Germany). Grape Nuts- no grapes or nuts- sounds better than wheat gravel, though, I admit..

[paulj]

Shrimp with lobster-style sauce (i.e. a sauce originally developed for use with lobster).
In "An Encyclopedia of Chinese Food and Cooking" (the big yellow book), shrimp with lobster sauce is given as a variation on Lobster Cantonese.
Tsau Lung Ha => He Tzee Lung Ha Joing

grape nuts - some resemblance to grape seeds (at one time most grapes had seeds), or broken nut size pieces, and/or 'grape sugar'.
http://dailyfitnessmagz.com/2011/02/h...

[Veggo]

paulj, you are truly nutzo and anal and a cornucopia of knowledge, and for this we love you!

[kathleen221]

Ha! I just had Grape Nuts last night. I'm going to start calling it wheat gravel now. Maybe I'll mulch my garden with it, too. =)

[paulj]

Apparently there's nothing tricky about home made Grape Nuts. Basically it is a stiff whole wheat dough sweetened with malted barley, baked in a sheet till hard and dry. Then coarsely grind it. A food processor might work, but the classic cast iron home grinder would be better.

The CWPost Wiki article gives another derivation of the name:
"Post's first breakfast cereal premiered in 1897, and he named the product Grape Nuts cereal because of the grape-like aroma noticed during the manufacturing process and the nutty crunch of the finished product."

He initially called his version of corn flakes " Elijah's Manna", later Post Toasties.

[LorenM]

Wow, you would have to be pretty hard-core to make your own Grape Nuts and malt the barley in your bath tub .I am glad I didn't grow up eating "Elijah's Manna".

[TheHuntress]

Bombay Duck...the first time I saw that on a menu I was all excited that I could order duck. I was quite young at the time :)

[buttertart]

That has faded into real obscurity in the US, you almost never see it mentioned. And what a surprise it must have been!

[lyn]

come one, nobody has said Buffalo wings yet? If they have sorry... :)

[goodhealthgourmet]

just thought of another one, though it's an ingredient, not a recipe...Rocky Mountain oysters.

[KaimukiMan]

things that make you go hummmmmmmm........

[shecrab]

I'm a Southern girl and was married to someone from Pa. His mother cooked "city chicken" which was cubes of veal and pork. Confusing! They also had soft chocolate sandwich cookies with white filling called "gobs". Can you think of a grosser name for a cookie? I mean...WHY?

[uwsister]

Yeah, they're whoopie pies. I remember they were called gobs sometimes. Whoopie pie certainly sounds more appetizing though, huh?

[cleobeach]

I am from PA and haven't heard whoopie pies called gobs. I like the cake part but cannot stomach the white filling.

[kpaxonite]

eggplant

[BobB]

Eggs don't grow on trees, but eggplant gets its name from the shape, not the content, so that does make sense in its own way.

[buttertart]

The first ones were apparently white and even more egg-looking.

[AmyH]

In Bolivia there is a very common dish called "Falso Conejo" or false rabbit. It is actually made of beef and doesn't even resemble rabbit since it's big flattened steaks.

Also, the Mexican dish "Sopa Seca" means dry soup and is a noodle casserole, which on second thought is actually not misleading at all.

[paulj]

A popular dish in the Andes is 'Seco de chivo' - literally 'dry of goat'. It's a rich goat stew. The 'dry' distinguishes it from a more soupy stew or caldo.

In Spain, rice dishes are often distinguished as being 'seco' (dry, like paella), melose (moist, creamy), caldoso (soupy).

[Veggo]

When I was a lil' tyke in the 50's, watching Gunsmoke, Bonanza, and the Lone Ranger on the black and white TV with rabbit ears, I was always creeped out by indian pudding and welsh rabbit. As for tilting at windmills, I thought Sancho Panza's wing man was donkey oatie.

[alkapal]

veggo, that'd make a fine name for a ben & jerry's ice cream: "donkey oatie" -- vanilla ice cream with oatmeal cookie chunks and....um...well...something "donkey".....

(or maybe spanish marcona almonds and caramel -- for donkey's sticky situations? ;-).

[rockycat]

<something "donkey".....>

A picture of an apoplectic Gordon Ramsay?

[alkapal]

LOL!!! http://www.newsgroper.com/files/post_...

[mamachef]

Donkey Oatie. That's one of the best things I've ever heard. It made me think of singing, "The Star-Spangled Banner" in maybe 3rd grade, and thinking "the dawnzerleelight" was some kind of lamp. :)

[2roadsdiverge]

This is along the same lines as "donkey oatie." On the show "So You Think You Can Dance" there is a choreographer named Tyce Diorio. On the discussion boards he is commonly referred to as "Tasty" because when you say his name it sounds like "Tasty Oreo"

[512window]

Dutch Baby - thank God it isn't...

[smartie]

where does 'pound cake' get it's name?

[goodhealthgourmet]

the traditional recipe calls for a pound each of butter, flour, eggs and sugar.

[smartie]

ooh thank you ghg

[goodhealthgourmet]

my pleasure! that one actually does make sense :)

[goodhealthgourmet]

Eton mess.

and i'm not sure why anyone thought "Dump Cake" was a good idea - i get that the name derives from the method of assembly, but it's rather off-putting!

[cleobeach]

This is probably regional - pigeons, which is ground meat and rice wrapped in cabbage leaves. I have met more than on transplant to my area that truly believed that the dish contained actual pigeon meat.

"Welsh Rarebit - it's ultimately cheese on toast"

I grew up in an all TV dinner house and occasionaly had to "make" dinner for my elderly grandmother. My dad told me to make her "rabbit" for dinner. He left specific instructions and put the box in the inside freezer. (we had four commercial chest freezers in the garage)

When he came home, she complained that I fed her cheese soup. He demanded to know why I fed her cheese soup, which is laughable because even if I did know how to make cheese soup, there were certainly no ingredients for it in the house.

This incident ended with me digging the box (Stouffer's I believe) out of the trash to prove to him that I did indeed cook what he told me to.....Welsh Rabbit.

[DeppityDawg]

Little pigeons, that's what they're called in Polish (and several other Slavic languages):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go%C5%82...

[cleobeach]

Very similar.

The pigeons of my childhood (also called blind pigeons, no idea why) were coated in a thin tomato sauce that reminded me of tomato juice.

I am now hungry for them. A local market/convenience store makes them and they sell out by 9 am.

[beachmouse]

I was disappointed the first time I tried a snickerdoodle cookie because it sounded like it should taste like a Snicker's candy bar but it didn't. (I've since learned that they're very yummy cookies on their own terms.)

[alkapal]

as opposed to the billing, this "orange-and-ale vinaigrette" salad does not "scream summer." http://www.thebittenword.com/thebitte... first off, oranges aren't "summer" -- they are "winter." second, i never associate ale with summer, but i guess that's because i think of it as a heavier drink, more suited to autumn/winter. i know the ale-heads will all disagree, but they are over on the beer board, duking it out over some fine point.

~~~~~~~

ale-hyphen-heads does not mean "heads made of ale" -- although they may feel that way the next morning.

[KaimukiMan]

stout is a winter beer. ale a lighter summer brew. But agree on the oranges. And apples aren't spring either, unless its the blossoms.

[alanbarnes]

"Ale" is any beer brewed with a strain of yeast that floats on top of the wort during the fermentation process. They can be heavy, light, or medium-bodied. Stouts and the massive IPAs so popular these days are both types of ale; so is Kölsch, a very light, summery beer.

The **average** ale is heavier than the average lager, which is made with bottom-fermenting yeast. But while there are plenty of light lagers out there, they share the category with heavier beers such as Doppelbocks, Münchner Dunkels, and Scwhartzbiers.

[KaimukiMan]

i need to spend more time in the adult beverage boards... sigh

thanks Alan

[alanbarnes]

Or take up homebrewing. Of course, it's more of a challenge in places where the average temp is 75F. Ah, the high price of living in paradise...

[jmckee]

Or just drink more.

[alkapal]

alan, what is the end result of top-ferment (ale) vs. bottom-ferment (lager)? is there a different bubbly quality? does one method give you a greater range of options for flavoring, or ratios of ingredients? i guess my real question is "what difference does it make"?

[buttertart]

I have wondered about that since the words bottom vs top fermented were uttered to me on my daddy's knee. Ale is usually higher in alcoholic content, isn't it? and somewhat heavier-bodied.

[alanbarnes]

Most lager yeasts respond well to cool, slow fermentation, while ale yeasts do best when allowed to do their thing fairly rapidly at room temp. So lagers - even big, full-bodied ones - tend to be clean and crisp, while ales are generally more complex and robust.

As far as alcohol content goes, both lagers and ales can run the gamut. Many people are surprised to learn that Guinness draught (a stout ale) is only about 4% ABV - less than Bud Light. Meanwhile, EKU 28 is a lager (an eisbock, to be precise) that clocks in at over 11%.

[blue room]

Is a cookie a small / cute cook?

[CyndiA]

Better Than Sex Cake

It wasn't.

[small h]

Death by Chocolate. Have eaten this. Am still alive.

[nkeane]

if it were, you are royally screwing one of those two things up....I will let you guess which.

[kpaxonite]

Creme brulee is not burnt cream (although the sugar on top is caramelized)

PS Americans: an Entree is an appetizer, a Plat is a main course

[Erika L]

"Duck sauce." No duck in there.

[small h]

Oh, good grief. There's no spaghetti in spaghetti sauce, either.

[kpaxonite]

LOL awesome reply

[Rmis32]

Nor any tables in table syrup.

[Erika L]

Nor are there tables in table wine! Duck sauce was the first item that came to mind when I read this topic title because I first heard the term when I was maybe 5 and was really looking forward to seeing Donald and Daisy and Daffy in the bowl! My family has yet to let me live this one down.

[rockycat]

I've always likened it to the Chinese menu use of "fish sauce." (yu shiang, IIRC?) On a Chinese menu, fish sauce means a sauce that is usually served with fish, but contains no fish itself. In other Asian cuisines, fish sauce means a sauce that is made from little fishies. I notice that I don't see the words "fish sauce" on Chinese menus so much anymore now that other Southeast Asian restaurants have become more widespread.

[Caitlin McGrath]

Yes, I have cookbooks with recipes for "fish-fragrant eggplant," and it's explained that the name is due to the use of ingredients generally used with fish. The eggplant recipe has no fish and does not smell like fish.

[buttertart]

Barbara Tropp posited (and I agree) that the name is actually from the old names for the kingdoms of Sichuan and Hunan, Yu and Xiang respectively, since the main ingredients (hot bean paste, ginger, garlic, scallions, etc) pervade the two cuisines and are not only used in fish preparations.
That use of historic/traditional place names is quite common in Chinese (the Old Shanghai restaurant in Manhattan has the character of the same type for the Shanghai area - pronounced "Hu" - on the window, as a classy way of identifying the cuisine they feature).
The characters for fish and flavor are more common and easily-written so have been substituted over time.

[roxlet]

That's very interesting. Clearly it helps to know the language!

[alkapal]

i remember the big discussion on "fish-flavor" (or was it "fish-fragrant"?) eggplant over on the fuschia dunlop COTM thread. very interesting. i seem to recall a discussion of the derivation of the term. your explanation sounds right to me, but i'm not a chinese food expert -- though i've read a lot about it.

i think the chinese have the most interesting terminology and names for their vast array of dishes!

i wonder if anyone has done a scholarly work on just the lexicon of chinese food?

[buttertart]

Yep, this is one of my hobbyhorses. The resident China expert agreed with it before I did.

There are comprehensive works on the subject in Chinese but not one in English yet as far as I know.

The big scholarly book on the subject is E.N. Anderson's "The Food of China" which I really must get around to one of these days (although even M didn't find it riveting and his tedium tolerance level is way past mine).

[greygarious]

I'll see your duck and raise you a lobster. Those Chinese restaurant menus are a minefield of misunderstanding!

[Veggo]

shoo-fly pie, mud pie

[kpaxonite]

in french bread pudding is pain perdue or "lost bread" haha

[grayelf]

I thought pain perdu was what we (also somewhat incongruously) call French toast. And I guess French fries should make this list too, since I rather doubt anyone French ever calls them that :-).

[kpaxonite]

Where I live (montreal) french toast in french is Pain Doree and Ive been to france many tmes but never noticed what it was called I assume it is the same (I personally hate it)
French fries are Frites (fries)

[alkapal]

hey veggo -- you gotta shoo-flies away from that sweet pie -- and the mud pie looks like….mud! ;-).

[kpaxonite]

ingredient: head cheese

[ipsedixit]

Along the same lines ... sweet breads.

[uwsister]

Yes! For years I thought it referred to sweet bread products in general.

[Terrieltr]

Related, sweetmeats. Yes, they're sweet, but where does the meat part come from?

[alanbarnes]

I always assumed that the usage started with candied fruit - you're eating the sweetened flesh of a cherry, citron, etc. It makes sense, even if it's completely incorrect.

[goodhealthgourmet]

and another related one - mincemeat pie. for the longest time i just assumed it was a savory meat pie!

[huiray]

Ditto that! I was very confused the first time I had one of these (mince meat pie) in England so, so many years ago.

[uwsister]

Yes! Used to confuse the hell out of me (sweetbreads vs. sweetmeats.)

[Midknight]

Sweetbread is meat. Mincemeat isn't.

I never understood that...

[alanbarnes]

Sweetbread is meat. Mincemeat might be meat. Sweetmeat is never meat.

[Midknight]

Oh yes, THAT sure clears things up! Thanks, Alan! lol

[jmckee]

However, I have seen recipes for homemade mincemeat -- old ones -- that actually do have an element of minced meat therein.

[buttertart]

There were recipes for this in my hometown paper when I was little. My mother famously made it one year and the canning jars blew. Never to be repeated.

[BobB]

Hence the "might be meat" category.

[alanbarnes]

To go a step further, sweetbreads are never sweet and never bread, but always meat. Mincemeat is always minced and sometimes meat. Sweetmeat is always sweet but never meat. ;-)

[DeppityDawg]

"Meat" originally meant any kind of food or item of food. The narrowing of the meaning, to refer to (animal) flesh, is relatively recent. For example, in the 17th century, this sentence still made sense: "They must not vse the same knife to meats made of milk, which they vsed in eating flesh."

[buttertart]

Same root as "mets" in French, meaning food, more commonly used in Québec than France, as in "mets Chinois". Québec French maintains some words from the 16- and 1700s, due to separation of the two language streams at the time of establishment of the colony.

[DeppityDawg]

No, "meat" is not derived from the same root as French "mets", which is from the verb "mettre", i.e. something that is "sent out" or "put [on the table]". It was also used to refer generally to food, but more specifically soft/liquid food, while "meat" referred to solid food. The cognate form of "mets" in English is "mess", as in "mess hall" and "Eton mess" and "hot mess"...

[buttertart]

Oh ho, the old false cognate bastardized word derivation trap got me again. Should have known that from entremets. The Québec point still stands, however.
What is the root of meat, then?

[alkapal]

>>>""the old false cognate bastardized word derivation trap got me again"""<<<

i *hate it* when that happens! ;-).

[buttertart]

Yeah, me too. Illusions shattered. Re colonial language separation, I understand that the word "skillet" is used in the States but not England for the same reason (cue UK poster saying I'm wrong on this too).

[DeppityDawg]

And the falsely re-Latinized Renaissance French spelling trap. "Mets" comes from Latin "missum", so there should not be a ‹t› in this word at all.

The origin of "meat" is kind of obscure, but the same root can be found in German "Metzger" (butcher) and "Mettwurst" (um, mettwurst).

[JeMange]

There might not be cheese in it, but there is certainly head.

[kpaxonite]

toad in a hole

[smartie]

it's toad in THE hole! don't ask me why.

There is also bubble and squeak.

English Muffins the name makes me giggle - we never had them in England until they were imported from the USA!

[Caitlin McGrath]

smartie, perhaps you or some other Briton can explain what is/was meant by "muffins" in England, when not in reference to American-style quick breads. There are references to muffins seved at teatime in Jane Austen's novels, published in the second decade of the 19th century, and I've always been curious about what this referred to.

[smartie]

hmm it's a good question, maybe something that fell out of favour because although we knew the nursery rhyme about the muffin man we never ate them (I was born in the 50s). I discovered English muffins in the US in the 70s but didn't know what they were going to taste like having never had them in the UK.

Hopefully a more knowledgeable Brit will know, or maybe they were a Northern thing that we Southerners (UK Southerners) didn't have. There was much more of a North South divide in the UK until recently in terms of foods.

[kpaxonite]

Im a Canadian and a Brit.... by quick bread do you mean what Brits would call pudding (ex Yorkshire)? Or american 'biscuits' and muffins would be similar to scones which are often flavoured with berries and whatnot and might even be called a muffin in the UK...

[Caitlin McGrath]

Quick breads are any non-yeasted breads/small cakes, so Yorkshire puddings (and popovers, which are similar) qualify, as do scones and the American types of biscuit, but in this case I was referring to what North Americans usually call muffins without a qualifier, baked in a muffin/cupcake tin - such as blueberry or bran muffins, to mention two popular flavors.

[Fruitgum]

Not sure about the origins for Toad in the Hole but Bubble & Squeak is a dish made mainly of leftover cabbage and potatoes that's fried in a bit of oil or butter but so called because of the noises made during said cooking process!

English Muffins are nothing to do with the American muffins at all as they are a cake; an English Muffin is a bread that is split, toasted and served with butter and in general jam. A very traditional Sunday evening treat like crumpets when I was little :)

American biscuits are like a plain scone (which in the UK often have fruit in them and apart from the few cheese ones tend to be served sweet) so are much more cake like and neither are like a muffin at all :)

Hope this helps.

[Fydeaux]

I had always kind of thought that 'bubble & squeak' was Cockney rhyming slang for something involving leeks. But a quick look at a dozen or so recipes on line show none involving leeks at all. So much for that theory. Maybe it involves the sounds it makes while cooking.

[smartie]

a bubble and squeak is a Greek in cockney rhyming slang. It gets shortened to bubble as in ' Only a bubble would drink that retsina'.

[greygarious]

I always assumed "bubble and squeak" referred to the consequences once it reaches the end of the GI tract.

[alkapal]

good one!

[smartie]

spotted dick!

coffee cake and tea cakes do not contain either coffee nor tea

Welsh Rarebit - it's ultimately cheese on toast

hot dogs (where did the dog part come from?)

[tastesgoodwhatisit]

I've seen this as Welsh Rabbit, which is even more confusing.

[jmckee]

It is indeed Welsh Rabbit. It's a bit of a long in-joke, and the "rare bit" spelling is a variant created to "correct" the joke.

[alkapal]

that is funny, jmckee -- a "refined" form to correct the original "joke" or sardonic name. i wonder if there is any other food like this -- that got a new pedigree, so to speak.

~~~~~~~~
so what is the basis for the joke? that the welsh don't even have rabbits to eat?

[jmckee]

It's in either Elizabeth David or Jane Grigson -- I forgot to look it up last night. It's the same as "Scotch Woodcock" -- dishes named after game that have no game in them. implying that the people in question are not good hunters. So for the Welsh a rabbit would be a "rare bit" -- something they don't catch very often.

[buttertart]

Sounds like Grigson, too downmarket for ED. ;-)
I remember hearing that from the time I first knew about rarebit, when I was growing up in Canada.

[jmckee]

I'm pretty sure now it's Grigson; ED's books on my shelf are all Italian, French, and Mediterranean in nature.

[buttertart]

Possibly in British Cookery or Good Things - I adore Jane Grigson.

[Rmis32]

Egg cream

[kpaxonite]

chicken fried steak

[alkapal]

it should be "chicken-fried" steak. steak fried like chicken is fried. i don't think that name is misleading -- unless one doesn't know about fried chicken. ;-).

[kpaxonite]

In Canada and probably many states no one would know whether it is chicken or steak or a mix of the two

[linguafood]

agree. that name made zero sense to me when i first heard about it. and i know what fried chicken is. chicken fried steak? nuh-uh, m'am. no way.

[alkapal]

because it is supposed to be written "chicken-fried" -- that hyphen means something.

[kpaxonite]

fried with chicken?

honestly if you consider the hyphen that is exactly what it means....

EX. chicken fried rice

[alkapal]

it is not "chicken-fried" rice it is chicken fried rice. your example makes my case. like beef lo mein.

[kpaxonite]

really? where is the chicken in the chicken fried steak?

you seriously missed the point

it should be called breaded fried steak or steak vener schnitzel

[alkapal]

fried like chicken. get it? "chicken-hyphen-fried." and how in the heck is wiener schnitzel more descriptive of the product it is? weiner schnitzel is not chicken-fried steak, in any event.

just curious, kpaxonite, have you even *had* chicken-fried steak?

[kpaxonite]

No I haven't because it doesn't exist here....my response was to he OP who asked for silly names and it is silly if you haven't grown up with it.

[KaimukiMan]

if you know how chicken is fried, then you should be able to guess what chicken fried steak is, with our without the hyphen. a fried steak, chicken style.

dumb names are more like "sweetbreads" that are not that sweet and certainly not bread.

[Rmis32]

but a lot more marketable than thymus or pancreas.

[kathleen221]

My first time at a nice restaurant (I was 17 or 18, and on a date), I had no idea what anything on the menu was, so I ordered sweetbreads, because I like sweet things and bread. Very tasty, still no idea what they were. It was only when I got home, and my dad started chuckling when he asked what I ate... =)

[paulj]

'Sweetbreads' goes back to the 16th c. The origin is not entirely clear, but the 'sweet' may refer to a richness (in contrast to muscle meat), and 'bread' derive from an OE word for meat or roast.

In any case it is not a euphemism, and not a composite of two modern words. Maybe it's the modern speaker who is dumb, not the word. :)

[huiray]

Sorry, "Chicken-fried" steak still does not make logical sense to me as it still requires familiarity and background knowledge. The descriptor "chicken-fried", on the face of it, does not mean "fried like you would fry a piece of chicken" to me.

[BobB]

It doesn't need to be logical. It's food. That's what it's called.

Do most people know that corned beef gets its name from the "corns" (large-grained salt) with which it is cured? I doubt it. Yet we don't hear any hue and cry about corned beef not being a carnivore's version of succotash.

[thew]

do you still say sunrise and sunset?

[linguafood]

i take that to mean that you personally prefer to use the highly popular 'earthrise' and 'earthset' instead?

[thew]

actually i prefer horizon-rise and horizon-set. poetically more satisfying to my ear

[jmckee]

As my southern relatives and friends would say, "Y'all ain't from 'round here, are you?" there's nothing wrong with the name Chicken-Fried Steak. It is an accepted menu item in a LOT of places.

[thew]

no one is chickenfried steak and the other is chicken friedrice

[Isolda]

A lot of problems are caused by the absence or misuse of punctuation.
To wit: Let's eat, Grandma! vs Let's eat Grandma!

[goodhealthgourmet]

i'm usually a pretty smart cookie, but the first time i saw it on a menu when i moved to ATL i wasn't sure if it was chicken or steak.

[uwsister]

Same here - it took me years before I learned it was actually steak - though I'm not a very smart cookie.

[cleobeach]

Agree on the chicken fried steak.

It wasn't until I was well into my 30s that I learned chicken fried steak did not contain any chicken products.

[DoobieWah]

Well, I've been eating chicken fried steak since I got my first toof so that never confused me at all, but my contribution to this thread is "Chicken-Fried Chicken".

It's a boneless chicken breast that's been pounded flat, battered and fried like...

...chicken fried steak!

[rockycat]

I was wondering when someone would come up with that!

[kpaxonite]

isnt this essentially wener shnitzel with the veal replaced with chicken cutlets?

[DeppityDawg]

I think you mean "chicken-fried-steak-fried chicken".

[rockycat]

This series of posts prompted me to make chicken-fried steak tonight. I haven't made it in quite a while and between the gravy, mashed potatoes, double breading, and shallow frying, I forgot what a mess it makes. So of course everything got eaten and it's now the kid's favorite way to eat beef. Thanks, CH!

Btw purists, I made a brown gravy rather than cream gravy because (cover your eyes) I just can't stand white gravy.

[linguafood]

Halver Hahn = a Rhineland "dish" that literally translates to half a rooster/chicken.

It really just is dark bread with thick sliced gouda, onion rings (NOT the fried kind), and paprika.

[mamachef]

Exactly the kind of thing I meant, linguafood! I mean: who thought that up? And why?

[linguafood]

That's a good question, mama. Lemme wiki/google the roots of that!

[alanbarnes]

Since we're going German, how about Leberkäse? It translates to "liver cheese" but contains neither. I'd heard good things about this delicacy, so ordered a Leberkässemmel in a biergarten. Imagine my surprise when I was served a bologna sandwich.

[linguafood]

YOU call it bologna, I call it liver loaf '-)

Not too crazy about it either. It's just very salty and bland.

But seriously, I've seen it translated as meat cake. Now, how appealing does that sound?

[alanbarnes]

I like meat. I like cake. So what's not to like about "meat cake"? ;-)

[linguafood]

Incidentally, the same beer garden in Berlin translates "Käsespieß" as "cheese spit".

Mmmmmmmmm cheese spit. Delish.

[alanbarnes]

Hey, it has cheese. It's on a spit (okay, a skewer, but close enough). Cheese spit it is!