Terms I Will Not Use

Just a quick list of terms that I refuse to use

Deconstructed
This term translates loosely into "too lazy to combine the ingredients." Technically, a bag of flour, a bag of peanuts and a bag of grapes is a "Deconstructed PB&J Sandwich." Knock that pretentious stuff off. Deconstruction is what you do when you're done playing with Legos.

Now that's deconstructed

Mouthfeel
This word just feels vaguely inappropriate. Mouthfeel sounds like something that would cost $50 extra in a massage parlor. It's even worse when you consider it in your own mouth. I feel violated. "That sausage sandwich had a greasy mouthfeel." It sounds nasty. Even if you say you loved the mouthfeel you still sound like some sort of deviant.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

Artisan
This term just smacks of conceit.  People are just applying it everything now. Artisan cheese. Artisan bread. Artisan toothpaste. It just means you used some goofy way to prepare it. Just because you used the combined body heat of 42 naked Swiss virgins to bake your bread, it doesn't make it artisan. It makes it pretentious. You used fancy ingredients? Super. Doesn't make it artisan. Otherwise I could call my cat food "Artisan Feast."

"Hang on, the roast is almost done!"

Toothsome
This word doesn't make a bit of sense in its context. Tasty? No. Food is not toothsome.

Shelley Duvall is toothsome.

Moist
I will not apply any word to food that I can apply to my crawlspace.

Ed Sheeran saying makes it 1,000 times worse.

Drool-worthy
Whenever I hear this word used, I immediately imagine someone sitting at the table, long tendrils of saliva oozing out of their open mouth. They breathe heavily, creating wet, sucking noises you'd expect to hear in a tuberculosis ward. A puddle of drool slowly collects on their plate. See? Totally not appetizing. Honestly, anybody openly drooling at my table is going to be asked to leave.

Yup, time to go.

Terms I Can't Bring Myself To Use

Sammie
As much as I like Rachel Ray, I just can't bring myself to say "sammie" in place of "sandwich." I don't call them "sammiches," so it feels wrong. It's a bit too cutesy for me. Rachael Ray has a proclivity for needless frippery in regards to culinary nomenclature. See what I did there? I could have just said she uses cutesy language for her food. Instead I needlessly changed out the language. A sandwich doesn't need a nickname. It needs a side of potato chips and a pickle spear.  Also, I associate the word with something entirely different.

Probably not what Rachael Ray had in mind.

Slider
"Slider" is a very specific term to me. It does not refer to any small sandwich. To me, "slider" refers to a hamburger from White Castle. I feel like my belief system is being challenged when I see any fanciful small sandwich called a slider. Sliders are called such for good reasons. They slide out of the box. They slide down your throat. They slide out of...well, you get the idea. If you have a small hamburger or sandwich and you didn't get it from a White Castle, it's not a slider. It's just a small hamburger or sandwich.

Harold and Kumar enjoying sliders (or slyders), aka White Castle hamburgers.

Spatchcock
The problem here is that, according to my wife, I have the maturity of a 12 year old. So when a recipe calls for spatchcock, or someone tells me that they had some spatchcock last night, I have a hard time not reacting inappropriately.

I'll just keep calling it "butterflied" until I can grow up.

Fondant
 I know fondant is all the rage with cakes and cupcakes and the like. There is no denying the end result of skilled fondant use is truly amazing.

Then you get something like this.

However, fondant does not look appetizing to me in any form. It reminds me of paraffin, which I try to avoid using in my cooking if at all possible.  Nor does it even sound appetizing. Fondant sounds like something you'd use in masonry.

Well, that's enough gentle fun for today. Good times!

Cooking Vocab: How You Know You're In Trouble

     Cooking has an extremely extensive vocabulary, one which I'm not motivated to learn in its entirety. In fact, there are certain words that let me know if a recipe is likely to be a colossal pain in the ass. Words that indicate the slightest error will result in a gut-wrenching nightmare. Those specific words that indicate a recipe is likely to be, as they would call it in the Old West, "Highfalutin." I find recipes with many of these words are often meant to impress, and that impression often costs more than I am willing to spend. This list is by no means comprehensive:

Aioli: I use aioli on my BLT's all the time. IT'S CALLED MAYONNAISE. Yes, I know that aioli can be more than that, but slapping an "aioli" on a recipe makes it sound freakishly pretentious. "Please, try my fried baloney sandwich with honeyed kohlrabi aioli."

Best Ever: These words indicate a recipe that will be made in a slow cooker and is not, in fact, the best ever.

Crudite: IT'S A FUCKING VEGGIE PLATTER.

Deglaze: Not a terribly time consuming or difficult process, but if done with wine, is a great chance to set your stove on fire.

Emulsification: Pretentious. You're just mixing stuff that doesn't want to be mixed. Like salad dressing. Or hollandaise sauce. Or your family. Just call it mixing. Nobody is impressed.

Foam: Foam should be in your beer. Period.

Gremolata: While gremolatas are usually nothing more than lemon peel and some chopped herbs, something about the word and it's placement in a recipe strike me as needlessly pompous. "Chicken with Gremolata." What's wrong with "Herbed Chicken?"

Slider: My good friend Rachael Ray is horrifically guilty of using this term. It seems any small sandwich is a "slider." Please take this simple quiz before applying "slider" to your small sandwich. Is your small sandwich actually a hamburger you bought from White Castle? No? Then it's just a small sandwich. Knock it off.

     That's enough for now. Join me next time when I actually post about something useful! Good times!