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.
beefalo: a cross between a buffalo and cattle, with the beef strain being predominant. The dark red meat of beefalo is very lean and has a stronger flavor than beef. Generally beefalo is available only in specialty meat markets.
cat’s tongue: thin, long cookes that resemble their namesake. These cookies are light, dry and slightly sweet and may be flavored with citurs, chocolate or flavorig extracts. Two are sometimes sandwiched together with jam or another type of sweet filling and may also be frosted.
Fluffernutter: This is a sandwich with marshmallow creme spread on one slice of bread and peanut butter on the other. Put them together to make a Fluffernutter. A company by the name of Durkee-Mower, Inc. manufactured a marshmallow creme that they referred to as Marshmallow Fluff and this sandwich was their creation.
flummery: 1. sweet soft pudding made of stewed fruit (primarily berries) thickenend cornstarch. 2. In England, flummeries consisted of oatmeal that’s cooked until smooth and gelatinous, sometimes mixed wth sweetener and milk. In the 18th century, this dish was either gelatin-thickened and either cream- or milk-based, flavored generously with sherry or madeira.
hen of the woods: a dark brownish gray cultivated mushroom resembling a tightly ruffled white-edged puff. This mushroom is so named because its shape vaguely resembles the body of a hen.
So the next time you go out for a meal, ask your waiter if you can have hen of the woods with your beefalo and if dessert options include either a Fluffernutter, a flummery or cat’s tongue and if they can even guess what one of those items are, than you know that they really have their foodie chops.
