Culinary Byte: Fun Foodie Words
Sometimes in my reading foodie stuff, whether through a book or online or a magazine, I come across some quirky food words that make you scratch your head as to what the heck they are, until the definition helps shed some light. See what I mean below.
affogato: a scoop of vanilla gelato or ice cream topped with a shot of hot espresso. Though vanilla is traditional, chocolate gelato is sometimes used, in which case the dessert becomes affogato mocha. The word affogato comes from the Italian affogare (“drown”).
bagoong: A Philippine condiment that’s popular in Hawaii and throughout the Pacific. Bagoong is made from shrimp or small f ish that have been salted, cured and fermented for several weeks. The resulting salty liquid (called patis) is drawn off and used separately as a sauce or condiment. In addition to being served as a condiment, bagoong is used as a flavoring in many dishes.
gallimaufry: any dish with a hodgepodge of ingredients such as a stew, ragout or hash.
kreplach: of Jewish origin, these small raviolilike noodle dumplings are filled with chopped meat or cheese. They’re simmered in broth or included in soup.
pandowdy: also called apple pandowdy; this deep-dish dessert is made of sliced apples, butter, spices brown sugar or molasses, all topped with a biscuit batter that becomes crisp and crumbly after baking. It can be served hot or room temperature and is often accompanied by cream or ice cream. The origina of the name is unclear, although some seem to think it comes from the dessert’s dowdy (plain and old-fashioned appearance).
So the next time you go out for a meal, ask your waiter if you can have bagoong as a condiment to go with your kreplach gallimaury and if you could order either the affogato or pandowdy for dessert and see how well your server really knows about food.
