Glossary of historical culinary terms

A number of culinary terms and historical spellings of ingredients, foods and methods are no longer in common use.

A

  • Ale yeast: See barm.[1]
  • Amber: Used in the Middle East during the medieval period as an aphrodisiac, influencing later culinary use in Europe. It continued to be used in France into the early 19th century as an addition in hot chocolate.[2]
  • Amulet: An archaic spelling of omelette. Hannah Glasse gives an atypical recipe for the time that used only yolks, resembling what is understood today as custard.[3]
  • Animalized: A 19th-century term among vegetarians to reference the process of food being fed to animals to become animal protein. An example appears in an 1896 letter from Ellen G. White: "The diet of the animals is vegetables and grains. Must the vegetables be animalized, must they be incorporated into the system of animals, before we get them?"[4]
  • Anchovy: The term anchovy in The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1747) is ambiguous as to whether the fish referred to is an anchovy or a sprat.[3]
  • Appulmos: A pottage prepared in medieval Britain by cooking apples, straining them through a sieve, and combining the resulting purée with almond milk. Honey or sugar were sometimes added to provide sweetness.[5][6]

B

  • Barm: A froth that is produced on the surface of beer as it ferments. British bakers used barm as a source of yeast until the 19th century when compressed yeast became widely available.[1][7]
  • Bason: Basin, used to refer to a large cooking pot.[8]

C

  • Carowaies: A reference to the spice caraway. In the context of a 1591 recipe for chewettes, carowaies likely refers to biscuits flavored with caraway used as part of a filling.[9][10]
  • Chewette: A small pie filled with fruits, spices, and minced meat or fish.[11] Alternative spellings include chewete, chewet, chawette, chuette, chuet, chuett, and chewit.[12]
  • Chocolattexos: Obsolete 18th-century term for chocolate pot.[13]
  • Codlin: In Britain historically a name for small, underripe apples, by the Elizabethan period it had become used to refer to small green apples which retained their shape when cooked.[1]
  • Comfit: A confection made by repeatedly coating nuts or seeds with a sugar syrup.[14]
  • Compost: A chilled preserve of fruit and vegetables, flavored with spices that was eaten in medieval Britain. It was often consumed in winter as a form of salad. In earlier versions, honey was added to provide sweetness, though by the 15th century a syrup of sugar and wine was used.[5]
  • Cury- Middle English for "cooking" (from the Old French queuerie, "cookery"), as seen in the historical cookbook The Forme of Cury [15]

D

A dariole, prepared according to a 15th recipe.
  • Dariole: Formerly a small pie containing a mixture of spices, and finely chopped herbs and meat. Now a culinary mold.[16]
  • Dowlet: A pie with small, carefully selected ingredients.[11]

E

  • Emptins: See emptyings.[7]
  • Emptyings: The dregs left at the end of the brewing process, historically used in Britain as a source of yeast by bakers alongside barm.[7]

G

H

  • Hebolace: See herbelade.[11]
  • Herbelade: A pie filled with a mix of herbs and pork mince.[11]
  • Houacaca powder: Obsolete term for cocoa powder from Oaxaca, Mexico.[18]

L

  • Leathercoats: Either a general term for russet apples or a name for a specific variety in the Elizabethan period. Alternatively spelled Leather coate.[1]

M

N

  • Nomblez: See numbles.[20]
  • Numbles: A cut of meat, though sources disagree about which animal and part it referred to. Also in French, appears in Le Ménagier de Paris (1393).[20]

P

  • Pease: A singular form of the vegetable pea, or a dish made from them.[21]
  • Pennet: A pulled sugar confection, likely boiled at a low temperature with a powdery texture.[22]
  • Publisher: Entering the American vernacular at the end of the 18th century, it initially meant an American who published texts from Britain.[23]
  • Pye: Pie.[24]

S

  • Searce: To sieve or sift.[25]
  • Seethe: Boil gently.[26]
  • Slops: An unappetising soup or other watery food.[25]
  • Spinage: Spinach.[27]

T

  • Talemouse: A sometimes triangular form of cheesecake.[11]

V

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Davidson 1995, p. 173.
  2. ↑ Davidson 1995, pp. 173–174.
  3. 1 2 Davidson 1995, p. 174.
  4. ↑ Adams 2010, pp. 111–112.
  5. 1 2 Wilson 1976, p. 261.
  6. ↑ Stavely & Fitzgerald 2004, p. 204.
  7. 1 2 3 Civitello 2017, p. 6.
  8. ↑ Grivetti & Shapiro 2008, p. 778.
  9. ↑ Albala 2006, p. 107.
  10. ↑ A W 1591, p. 22v.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Clarkson 2009, p. 29.
  12. ↑ Livingston 1960, p. 14.
  13. ↑ Grivetti & Shapiro 2008, p. 781.
  14. ↑ Mason 2015, p. 169.
  15. ↑ "cury". Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/OED/1060805612. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  16. ↑ Clarkson 2009, pp. 28–29.
  17. ↑ Campbell Franklin 1997, p. 231.
  18. ↑ Grivetti & Shapiro 2008, p. 786.
  19. ↑ Grivetti & Shapiro 2008, p. 788.
  20. 1 2 Greco & Rose 2009, p. 344.
  21. ↑ Eden 2006, p. xviii.
  22. ↑ Mason 2015, p. 565.
  23. ↑ Stavely & Fitzgerald 2017, p. 69.
  24. ↑ Grivetti & Shapiro 2008, p. 791.
  25. 1 2 Grivetti & Shapiro 2008, p. 793.
  26. ↑ Eden 2006, p. xix.
  27. ↑ Grivetti & Shapiro 2008, p. 794.

Sources

Primary

  • A W (1591). A book of cokrye very necessary for all such as delight therein. London: Edward Allde.

Secondary

Further reading

Historic food writing with glossaries:

  • Davidson, Alan (1995). "Glossary and Notes". "First Catch Your Hare ... ": The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Blackawton, Devon: Prospect Books. ISBN 978-1-903018-37-8.
  • Hieatt, Constance B (1988). An Ordinance of Pottage: An Edition of the 15th Century Culinary Recipes in Yale. London: Prospect Books. pp. 225–235. ISBN 0-907325-38-6.
  • Veit, Helen Zoe (2015). "Glossary of Nineteenth-Century Cooking Terms". In Veit, Helen Zoe (ed.). Food in the Civil War Era: The South. American Food in History. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press. pp. 255–256. ISBN 978-1-61186-164-8.
  • Weaver, William Woys (1982). A Quaker Woman's Cookbook: The Domestic Cooking of Elizabeth Ellicott Lea. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-7848-8.
  • Wilson, C Anne (1984). A Book of Fruits and Flowers. Prospect Books: Prospect Books. pp. xxi–xxv. ISBN 0-907325-19-X.
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