What is your most loathed cooking terminology?

[dragnlaw]

I also have a set Jade, but not with the fractions imprinted on them. Nice find.

Rare use them but it's true, once saw a blurb on just what a pinch/dash/smidgeon, etc was - but there again....

what can be collected between thumb and forefinger is relative to the size of the hand. LOL

 

[taxlady]

<snip>


Here again.... what is average?

Well, in Denmark, an ordinary onion weighs 150 grams, peeled weight, as it says in my post. They tell you how many grams of peeled onion to use. Then they give you the additional info about the weight of an ordinary, peeled onion, in case you don't have a scale. Here's the link, if you want to see for yourself (løg means onion):

Kylling i karry er en vaskeægte klassiker. Med en kort tilberedningstid er denne smagfulde karryret en sikker favorit i en travl hverdag.

Kylling i karry - En opskrift fra Alletiders Kogebog blandt over 39.000 forskellige opskrifter, mere end 6.000 med billeder.

www.dk-kogebogen.dk

 

[taxlady]

I have never seen a recipe that differentiates between seeds and greens. Sprinkle with some coriander to finish.... is a new cook going to know the difference?
Some, correction, I would say even MOST people don't even know they are the same plant.

<snip>

I have. I guess you haven't looked at, or don't remember looking at, older recipes that used coriander greens. Usually just "coriander" means the seeds. Do you look at British recipes? Those usually still say coriander greens, if they mean the leaves.

And using the Spanish word, "cilantro", is part of why many people don't know that it's the same plant.

 

[pepperhead212]

In my early CBs - a lot of them used ones from the 60s, but some earlier 70s books - had "chopped coriander" in the recipes; even Diana Kennedy's first few Mexican books had it listed as coriander, but probably in the late 70s/early 80s cilantro started being used instead. And I rarely saw it as greens, but I guess they figured that if you are putting in 1/2 c you should know it's greens, and 1/2 tsp should probably be powder!

 

[jennyema]

extra virgin olive oil.....
just a pet peeve. All olive oil I ever see is marked extra virgin, but I'm sure it is not.
Real extra virgin should just be used for salad dressing etc in my opinion

And umami....
It's overused

Lots of olive oil is NOT marked as “extra Virgin.” There are Virgin and just regular olive oils in stores.

How are you so sure ones marked as EV are not? I use EV for pretty much everything.

umami. It’s the fifth taste. Is salty overused? Sour? Sweet? Bitter?

 

[taxlady]

Lots of olive oil is NOT marked as “extra Virgin.” There are Virgin and just regular olive oils in stores.

How are you so sure ones marked as EV are not? I use EV for pretty much everything.

umami. It’s the fifth taste. Is salty overused? Sour? Sweet? Bitter?

Yup, I have seen olive oil at supermarkets that doesn't say "extra virgin".

I think the word umami is great, but it seems that everyone and their sister has now learned the word and is practising using it. They are also using it for stuff that doesn't really have much, if any, umami. It's not just a nice flavour. It's a specific, nice flavour.

I dunno, maybe we all need some samples of the five flavours, so we can check that we mean the same one as the "official" one. I see descriptions of foods that use the word bitter when I wouldn't. I even saw someone confuse sour and bitter.

 

[Badjak]

My post was aimed at my situation
All olive oil around here is marketed as extra virgin and at the price it is being sold it cannot be.
I have even seen a mixed oil (grape and olive) that claims the olive oil is extra virgin. Now that would plainly be insane.
No controls here.

As for umami: I fully recognise it as a 5th taste, but it is mentioned so often that it gets annoying to me. It's indeed like someone learned a new word and has to keep using it.

 

[pepperhead212]

I just heard something that drives me crazy hearing people say it all the time! The pronounce the word "habanero" as if it is spelled "habañero", simply because the chile that has been used a lot longer in this country - jalapeño - has a tilde over the n, and they are so used to saying it, they pronounce habanero the same way! Many of these people are professionals, and you would think they would know it. Almost everyone mis-pronounced jalapeño, in my early days, but almost everyone has figured that out by now, but I guess it's because they've been hearing it much of their lives, not because they know why the tilde is there.

 

[larry_stewart]

EVOO or Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I don't mind either, I just hate when they use the acronyms to shorten it, then repeat ( win the same breath) the full version.

" You will need 2 Tablespoons of EVOO, Extra Virgin Olive Oil."

Why use the abbreviation if you're just going to say the full version anyway? I can understand if they do it once, the first Tim, but every time ??

Then there is the opposite, when they ue the acronym, don't explain it, and you have no idea what they mean. Especially in cooking shows, why not just say the ingredient in full instead of trying to save a fraction of a second of time.

"Delish" drives me crazy.
I agree with the "Medium" Sized onion ( or whatever). Just chop it up and give me the exact measurement.

I also hate ( but understand) some of the catch phrases or words you'll repetitively hear on the cooking shows , like " Bam" (Emeril ), "Crunchify" ( Flay)... I get why its done, but drives me crazy when I hear it ( 100 times ) and even crazier when you here other people working it into their own lingo.

 

[dragnlaw]

oh oh... that's me with the "delish"
LOL and the reason I use delish all the time is because I can never type delicious correct the first time and I always have to go back and correct it... just so much easier using 'delish'
I shall make an effort now not to - (except maybe once in a while?)

 

[Linda0818]

EVOO or Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I don't mind either, I just hate when they use the acronyms to shorten it, then repeat ( win the same breath) the full version.

" You will need 2 Tablespoons of EVOO, Extra Virgin Olive Oil."

Why use the abbreviation if you're just going to say the full version anyway? I can understand if they do it once, the first Tim, but every time ??

Then there is the opposite, when they ue the acronym, don't explain it, and you have no idea what they mean. Especially in cooking shows, why not just say the ingredient in full instead of trying to save a fraction of a second of time.

"Delish" drives me crazy.
I agree with the "Medium" Sized onion ( or whatever). Just chop it up and give me the exact measurement.

I also hate ( but understand) some of the catch phrases or words you'll repetitively hear on the cooking shows , like " Bam" (Emeril ), "Crunchify" ( Flay)... I get why its done, but drives me crazy when I hear it ( 100 times ) and even crazier when you here other people working it into their own lingo.

I've always hated - okay, despised - Rachael Ray's "Yummo!" And I can't stand it when other people say it (or type it) either.

I also hate the catch phrase "I was today years old when I learned how to cook this."

Just stop it.

 

[Marlingardener]

I loathe the word "sammich" to refer to a sandwich. When I hear or see "a 'mater sammich over the kitchen sink" I want to bat someone up the side of their head!

 

[dragnlaw]

I loathe the word "sammich" to refer to a sandwich. When I hear or see "a 'mater sammich over the kitchen sink" I want to bat someone up the side of their head!

Not to mention - I have absolutely no idea what that means in the first place. There are certain phrases I don't mind (once in a while) being used as short-cuts on places like here - but to actually SAY the words in a conversation? No... just no! That is really reducing speech down to baby talk - before an infant has learned how to use their muscles in their mouths. "I wanna dwink a wawa" Grow up!

 

[KatyCooks]

Just to give some UK perspective on the Coriander/Cilantro question. In the UK Coriander is the term used whether it is a whole spice, ground spice or the green plant (herb). It is easy to grow Coriander in the short term, so people (like me) do so, for adding to curries as a sprinkle on top or the stems in a sauce. But they don't grow it for the seeds. Those are just bought in jars or packets. Always called coriander though.

I only know it is called cilantro from being on this forum!

 

[KatyCooks]

My boss says "sammich" and I am so glad it is not just me that finds it utterly puerile!

 

[taxlady]

I don't mind the occasional use of a puerile term like "sammich". If used sparingly it can have a certain charm. I don't often use the term "figicator", but once in a blue moon, it seems appropriate. It's what a friend's child called the refrigerator and I think it works when not overused.

 

[dragnlaw]

taxy... absolutely - quoting a child's speech is exactly that - cute, as you so astutely say, a puerile term. But please, make it obvious, put it in 'quotes'. If you imply that is how you normally speak... then perhaps you should ask your Mama if you are allowed to post on this forum. ... just MHO

 

[Marlingardener]

Dragnlaw, "'mater sammich over the kitchen sink" is not only a misuse of the English language, but is gastronomically ghastly. Two slices of the gummy grocery store white bread with sliced tomatoes between, and because of the tomato juice, it is eaten over the kitchen sink, presumably to keep your bib overalls clean.

 

[Kathleen]

This may be an unpopular opinion, and I apologize if I step on toes for stating it, I detest when someone writes a recipe that calls for something "organic" like "2 pounds of organic chicken breasts" or "organic salad greens." My reasons are two-fold: 1. I find people purchase the best they can, and I feel that spelling out that it should be "organic" is condescending. Does it matter to the outcome whether the label says "organic?" 2. My first degree was biology with physics and chemistry minors. If it is grown or raised, it contains carbon and IS organic technically.

I need to go hard-cook my organic eggs for egg salad now....to cool my heels.

 

[Andy M.]

. . . I need to go hard-cook my organic eggs for egg salad now....to cool my heels.

. . . you mean cool your organic heels, right?