Food Terminology #1

1. CROISSANT

    Croissant French pronunciation  is a buttery, flaky, viennoiserie pastry named for its crescent shape. Croissants and other viennoiserie are made of a layered yeast-leavened dough. The dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a layered, flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry. Crescent-shaped breads have been made since the Renaissance, and crescent-shaped cakes possibly since antiquity.

    Croissants have long been a staple of Austrian and French bakeries and pâtisseries. In the late 1970s, the development of factory-made, frozen, pre-formed but unbaked dough made them into a fast food which can be freshly baked by unskilled labor. The croissanterie was explicitly a French response to American-style fast food, and as of 2008 30–40% of the croissants sold in French bakeries and patisseries were baked from frozen dough.

    The croissant is a type of bread. It is shaped like a crescent moon. It is usually a breakfast food. It is also called a crescent. It can also be called a crescent roll, although a crescent roll may be smaller. It is not a quick bread. It is made of a variant of puff pastry.

 2. DANISH

        Danish pastry or just Danish (especially in American English) is a multilayered, laminated sweet pastry in the viennoiserie tradition. The concept was brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers and has since developed into a Danish specialty. Like other viennoiserie pastries, such as croissants, they are a variant of puff pastry made of laminated yeast-leavened doughs, creating a layered texture.

        In Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, the term for Danish pastry is wienerbrød/wienerbröd, "Viennese bread".The same etymology is also the origin of the Finnish viineri. Danish pastry is referred to as facturas in some Spanish speaking countries. In Vienna, the Danish pastry, referring to Copenhagen, is called Kopenhagener Plunder or Dänischer Plunder.

3. PIZZA

   Pizza is a traditional Italian dish consisting of a yeasted flatbread typically topped with tomato sauce and cheese and baked in an oven. It can also be topped with additional vegetables, meats, and condiments, and can be made without cheese. The term pizza was first recorded in the 10th century, in a Latin manuscript from the Southern Italy town of Gaeta in Lazio, on the border with Campania. Modern pizza was invented in Naples, and the dish and its variants have since become popular and common in many areas of the world In 2009, upon Italy's request, Neapolitan pizza was registered with the European Union as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed dish. Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (True Neapolitan Pizza Association), a non-profit organization founded in 1984 with headquarters in Naples, aims to "promote and protect... the true Neapolitan pizza"

     The word "pizza" first appeared in a Latin text from the southern Italy town of Gaeta, then still part of the Byzantine Empire, in 997 AD; the text states that a tenant of certain property is to give the bishop of Gaeta duodecim pizze ("twelve pizzas") every Christmas Day, and another twelve every Easter Sunday".

4. SPAGHETTI

      Spaghetti is a long, thin, solid, cylindrical pasta. Spaghettoni is a thicker form of spaghetti, while capellini is a very thin spaghetti. It is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine. Like other pasta, spaghetti is made of milled wheat and water and sometimes enriched with vitamins and minerals. Authentic Italian spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but elsewhere it may be made with other kinds of flour. Typically the pasta is white because refined flour is used, but whole wheat flour may be added.

     Originally, spaghetti was notably long, but shorter lengths gained in popularity during the latter half of the 20th century and now it is most commonly available in 25–30 cm (10–12 in) lengths. A variety of pasta dishes are based on it, and it is frequently served with tomato sauce or meat or vegetables. Spaghetti is the plural form of the Italian word spaghetto, which is a diminutive of spago, meaning "thin string" or "twine".

5. STEAK

      Steak is a meat generally sliced across the muscle fibers, potentially including a bone. Exceptions, in which the meat is sliced parallel to the fibers, include the skirt steak that is cut from the plate, the flank steak that is cut from the abdominal muscles, and the famous Silverfinger steak that is cut from the loin and includes three rib bones. When the word "steak" is used without qualification, it generally refers to a beefsteak. In a larger sense, there are also fish steaks, ground meat steaks, pork steak and many more varieties of steaks.

       The word steak originates from the mid-15th century Scandinavian word steik, or stickna' in the Middle English dialect, along with the Old Norse word steikja. The Oxford English Dictionary's first reference is to "a thick slice of meat cut for roasting or grilling or frying, sometimes used in a pie or pudding; especially a piece cut from the hind-quarters of the animal." Subsequent parts of the entry, however, refer to "steak fish", which referred to "cod of a size suitable for cutting into steaks", and also "steak-raid", which was a custom among Scottish Highlanders of giving some cattle being driven through a gentleman's land to the owner.An early written usage of the word "stekys" comes from a 15th-century cookbook, and makes reference to both beef or venison steaks.

6. MACAROON

      Macaroon is a type of small round biscuit, typically made from ground almonds (the original main ingredient), coconut, and/or other nuts or even potato, with sugar and sometimes flavorings (e.g. honey, vanilla, spices), food coloring, glace cherries, jam and/or a chocolate coating Some recipes call for sweetened condensed milk. Macaroons are often baked on edible rice paper placed on a baking tray.

          The name of the cake comes from the Italian maccarone or maccherone meaning "paste", referring to the original almond paste ingredient; this word itself derives from ammaccare, meaning "to crush".The word maccherone itself is derived from the Greek μακαρία (makaria), a kind of barley broth which was served to commemorate the dead. The first synthetic of the word (makar) in Greek means "blessed, happy".

7. KETOPRAK

    Ketoprak is a vegetarian dish from Jakarta, Indonesia, consists of tofu, vegetables and rice cake, rice vermicelliserved in peanut sauce.

         The etymology of the name ketoprak is unknown, and its name similarity to the Javanese folk-drama is peculiar. However, according to popular Betawi tradition, ketoprak was actually derived from the acronym of its ingredients; which are ket from ketupat, to from tahu and toge, and prak from digeprak (Betawi for: "mashed" or "crushed"), which describes the method on grounding garlic, chili pepper and peanut granules together to create the peanut sauce.

  Although today ketoprak is often associated with Jakarta, as the dish is more easily available in this city compared to others. There is a suggestion that the dish might be originated from elsewhere. In Jakarta, majority of ketoprak street vendors hailed from the West Javan city of Cirebon. In Cirebon, an area famous for its ketoprak is in Pasuketan area. Ketoprak might be derived from a popular Javanese-Sundanese dish kupat tahu (tofu and ketupat), with addition of bihun (rice vermicelli), beansprouts, cucumber and sweet soy sauce.

 8. BAKSO

          Bakso or baso is Indonesian meatball, or meat paste made from beef surimi.Its texture is similar to the Chinese beef ball, fish ball, or pork ball. The term bakso could refer to a single meatball or the whole bowl of meatballs soup. The term mie bakso refer to bakso served with yellow noodles, while the term bakso kuah refer to bakso meatballs soup served without any noodles.

        The name bakso originated from  the Hokkien pronunciation for "fluffy meat" or "minced meat". This suggests that bakso has Indonesian Chinese cuisine origin. Chinese influences is apparent in Indonesian food, such as bakmi, mie ayam, pangsit, mie goreng, kwetiau goreng, bakso, and lumpia. Indeed, bakso texture is quite similar to Chinese beef balls, which is quite fluffy and has homogenous texture. Although bakso has Chinese Hokkien origin name, culinary experts suggests that it is likely that bakso was the mixture of culinary influences back in colonial Dutch East Indies. Also in Indonesian, the term bola daging is often refer to Western or European style of meatballs, which is different in texture and elasticity compared to bakso. For example, the Swedish meatballs is translated as bola daging Swedia in Indonesian. The soup and the noodles probably originated in China, but the meatball, may have come from the Dutch, who colonized Indonesia in the 19th century.

9.SATE

        Satay or sate in Indonesian spelling, is a dish of seasoned, skewered and grilled meat, served with a sauce. It is a dish of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. Satay may consist of diced or sliced chicken, goat, mutton, beef, pork, fish, other meats, or tofu; the more authentic version uses skewers from the midrib of the coconut palm frond, although bamboo skewers are often used. These are grilled or barbecued over a wood or charcoal fire, then served with various spicy seasonings. Satay can be served in various sauces, however most often they are served in a combination of soy and peanut sauce. Hence, peanut sauce is often called satay sauce.

        In the past, there have been stories that satay originated in China, with the name derived from the Southern Min words sa tae bak meaning "three pieces of meat".However, contemporary scholars say that the English word "satay" is derived from Indonesian: sate, and Malay: saté or satai, both perhaps of Tamil origin and that satay was developed by Javanese street vendors as a unique adaptation of Indian kebabs. The introduction of satay, and other now-iconic dishes such as tongsengand gulai kambing based on meats such as goat and lamb, coincided with an influx of Indian and Arabtraders and immigrants starting in the 18th century.

10.GADO-GADO

         Gado-gado (Indonesian or Betawi), also known as lotek (Sundanese and Javanese), is an Indonesian salad of slightly boiled, blanched or steamed vegetables and hard-boiled eggs, boiled potato, fried tofu and tempeh, and lontong (rice wrapped in a banana leaf), served with a peanut sauce dressing.

      The term gado or the verb menggado means to consume something without rice. Gado-gado in Indonesian literally means "mix-mix" since it is made of rich mixture of vegetables such as potatoes, longbeans, bean sprouts, spinach, chayote, bitter gourd, corn and cabbage, with tofu, tempeh and hard-boiled eggs, all mixed in peanut sauce dressing, sometimes also topped with krupuk and sprinkles of fried shallots. Gado-gado is different from lotek atahor karedok which uses raw vegetables. Another similar dish is the Javanese pecel.