Good Food Grammar

HAHA! Pedants suck

Technically Correct Man resize.jpg

[Jenise]

LOL, Tom.

[Robin Garr]

Laughing at Tom's, but Bill gets my yee-haw for the first one. I don't think I've ever given voice to it, but I've certainly felt like that while holding a lot of restaurant menus!

When my local restaurant first opened 10 years ago they printed their menus daily.
The chef sprung me correcting the spelling! Fortunately he was amused and we are good friends.

[Robin Garr]

I did once gently suggest that a sweet little Thai lady/restaurant owner correct “crap Rangoon.”

I did once gently suggest that a sweet little Thai lady/restaurant owner correct “crap Rangoon.”

Did you try it first...?

[Robin Garr]

I did once gently suggest that a sweet little Thai lady/restaurant owner correct “crap Rangoon.”

Did you try it first...?

No, I did not ...

[Jenise]

Yesterday I ran into one that irritates me to death. It's the misuse of the french word 'au'. You did not just make an 'au gratin', you made a gratin. But your vegetable is au gratin when you bake it with cheese and cream (though some would insist that anymore cheese doesn't have to be included, cream alone would suffice). I suffered through a recipe yesterday that someone sent me for cabbage au gratin in which they misused the term at least five times, like "now take the roasted cabbage and place it in your au gratin dish and top your cabbage au gratin with the cheese...." It was like they were racking up points for every time they slipped it in. REALLY ANNOYING.

Another menu item from the French department of redundancy department: "roast beef with au jus".

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Yes, and do you want your au jus on the meat or on the side?

[Robin Garr]

Yes, and do you want your au jus on the meat or on the side?

Wait! What? Isn't that "Aw Juice"?

[Jenise]

Yes, and do you want your au jus on the meat or on the side?

Wait! What? Isn't that "Aw Juice"?

Grin. But you bring up a good point. I've never heard that mispronunciation: people seem to know enough to pronounce it 'jew', or zhew if you will (same issue with the 'j' in my name, which should be the latter, don't get me started), yet they don't know enough to leave out the 'au'.

On our honeymoon we went to a fancy Swiss place where the waiter described a special of the day as being served "with fine herbs", "fine" rhyming with "line", and a very much articulated "h". Insanely curious to hear his answer, I asked him what they were. Predictably enough he said, "herbs of the finest quality". We did not order it.