Food cliches that have to go!

[Jenise]

"It's like a party in your mouth."

gourmet

artisanal

house made/made in house

gourmet

artisanal

house made/made in house

Certainly both "gourmet" and "artisanal" are over-used. But what would you say instead of "house made" if, um, well, the food was made in-house?

[Jenise]

It would never have occurred to me to object to 'house-made'. Maybe I need to live in a bigger city to tire of that, but as long as it's true it's welcome to me when I see it on a menu, especially if charcuterie's involved.

[Jenise]

Clicked SEND too fast. I meant to add to the above that I haven't yet seen it misused. The problem with words like gourmet, and now artisinal, is that they've been adopted by processed food manufacturers and rendered meaningless. Haven't seen that yet with 'house-made'.

farmhouse

Mark Lipton

Certainly both "gourmet" and "artisanal" are over-used. But what would you say instead of "house made" if, um, well, the food was made in-house?

I suppose 'house made' has a stricter definition than the more fanciful 'gourmet' and 'artisanal', but it can also be over-used and stretched to the limits (e.g. Arby's house made chips).

My other problem is that it's no longer a signal of quality, which is the real value for customers. Restauranteurs catch on quickly, so too often 'house made' now just means that the restaurant is using buzzwords and buzzconcepts, and the product may be worse than if they had bought said item from a specialty purveyor down the block.

Locally sourced
Organic
Natural
Gastrique
Sous Vide
artisanal/artisan

when food is referred to as being, "orgasmic"

"It's like a party in your mouth."

You quoting Rachael Ray again? You sure she was talking about food....?