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User:Fuzheado/List of misleading food names

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Many foods have misleading names that purport to indicate either their origin or ingredients, or both, while actually doing neither. Some of these are cultural put-downs of a sort, while others are simply imaginative or muddled thinking. Foods named for famous places may have no connection with them. Some food names have been mistranslated from their original language. Many cuisines have fanciful names for dishes, but no one eating them is deceived. This list is a greyer area.

General

  • Bear claw - Is an almond-flavored, yeast-raised pastry shaped in a large, irregular semicircle with slices around the outside, evoking the shape of a bear's paw
  • Beef olives, or veal olives, beef birds, veal birds have no olives and no birds, respectively.
  • Bombay duck - Is not duck at all, but dried fish. It is also known as Bummalo, which is a species of fish from Southern Asia, particularly abundant in the Ganges Delta and the Arabian Sea of western India.
  • Colonial Goose - Actually lamb marinated in red wine, with dried apricots and honey added to regular stuffing, and then baked. This originated in New Zealand in the early 19th Century when goose was difficult to acquire, so cooks improvised.
  • Cream crackers — Contain no cream, and are pale brown in colour.
  • Hawaiian pizza - This version of pizza does not come from Hawaii at all. It is a pizza with toppings of pineapple and ham. The name probably came from the pineapples that grow in Hawaii, as well as the traditional place of pork in the native Hawaiian diet. See also Toast Hawaii.
  • Head cheese - is a traditional sausage made from gelatin and beef or sheep head parts and contains no cheese.
  • Hot Dog - This does not in actuality contain dog meat. A hot dog is a traditional meal with meat in between a piece of bread. The food probaly took its name from a Yale joke about the dubious origins of sausage meat in 19th Century America.
  • Jerusalem artichoke is unrelated to Jerusalem. It is a tuberous sunflower, with a daisy like flower, also unrelated to the globe artichoke which is part of the thistle family]]. "Jerusalem" is a corruption of the Italian girasole, meaning turning toward the sun (heliotropism)
  • Mincemeat - Mincemeat was invented in the Middle Ages as a sweet, spicy mixture of chopped lean meat, (usually beef, or beef tongue), suet and fruit. Over time, the meat content was reduced, and today the mixture contains nuts, dried fruit, beef suet, spices and brandy or rum, but usually no meat.
  • Oiseaux sans têtes - Literal translation 'birds without heads'. A Belgian dish consisting of sausage meat wrapped in slices of veal.
  • Norwegian omelette - Is neither a Norwegian dish nor is it made from whole eggs. This French dessert, also known as Baked Alaska even though it is not an Alaskan dish either, consists of hard frozen ice cream on a bed of sponge cake, covered with uncooked meringue. It is kept in the freezer until serving time, when it is placed in a very hot oven, just long enough to brown the meringue.
  • Refried beans are only fried once. Their English name comes from the Spanish word "refrito," where the "re-" is used for emphasis, not repetition.
  • Scotch woodcock - This is not poultry at all. Instead, it is an egg mixture with anchovies on toast. Sometimes an anchovy paste is used.
  • Spotted Dick, or Spotted Dog, is a steamed pudding made with dried fruits, and not, in fact, a speckeled penis.
  • Sweetbread - This is neither sweet, nor bread. It is a dish made up of the pancreas or the thymus gland of a calf or lamb. It is prepared in a variety of ways, including fried, sauteed or baked.
  • Sweetmeat - An archaic word for confectionery, originating in a time when "meat" denoted food in general and not exclusively the flesh of animals.
  • Swiss Wing - This was not invented in Switzerland, but possibly in Hong Kong. It is made with soy sauce and chicken.
  • Toad in the hole - This does not contain toads. It is a traditional British dish made of sausage, or occasionally pork chops, cooked in Yorkshire Pudding.
  • Vanillerostbraten - An Austrian dish which does not contain vanilla, but garlic (which is nicknamed "poor man's vanilla"[1]).
  • Welsh rabbit or Welsh rarebit - Neither name describes what this food actually is. It is an open-faced toasted cheese sandwich, or a cheese sauce on buttered toast.

Canada

China

Mexico

South Africa

  • Bunny Chow is actually a popular South African meal consisting of an emptied out half-loaf of bread filled with chips (french fries), curry, or meat—but never rabbit meat. The Afrikaans name for this dish, "Katkop", translates to "cat head".
  • Monkeygland Sauce has nothing to do with monkeys or glands, but is a very popular South African sauce that usually consists of a marinade of fruit chutney, red wine (or tomato sauce), and hot sauce. It is mostly used to prepare the dish Monkeygland Steak.

Spain

  • Agua de Bilbao ("water of Bilbao") is a Bilbao nickname for champagne or cava.
  • Brazo de gitano means "Gipsy's arm", but is actually a cake roll.
  • While most varieties of gazpacho are cold soups, gazpacho manchego ("La Mancha-style gazpacho") is a stew.

USA

Cocktails

Cocktails have a long line of odd names with no particular reasoning behind the name. Some of the more common drinks include:

Misleading brand names

This section contains commercial names of processed foods that are fancifully comparative, some of which could be considered very odd if taken at face value.

  • Boston Baked Beans — Candy coated peanuts that may resemble baked beans made by Ferrara Pan Candy co.
  • Chick-O-Stick — not a stick of chicken, or chicken on a stick, but a candy bar.
  • Chicken of the Sea — a brand of canned tuna, famously confused for chicken by pop singer Jessica Simpson.
  • Chock full o'Nuts (official capitalization) — This brand of coffee contains no nuts
  • Goldfish Crackers A crispy bite size cheddar cheese cracker in the shape of a goldfish. Goldfish Crackers is a trademark of Pepperidge Farms Incorporated.
  • Grape-Nuts — Cereal contains neither grapes nor nuts. (Its creator incorrectly thought that the baking process turned starch into "grape sugar".)
  • Pocari Sweat — Contains no sweat; the misleading name is intended to indicate that it replaces electrolytes lost through sweating.
  • Turkey Joints - A blend of chocolate and Brazil nuts covered with a sweet silvery coating formed to look like turkey bones. Made by Candyland and Nora's Candy shop in Rome, NY.
  • Wienerschnitzel — American fast food chain that does not serve wiener schnitzel but specializes in hot dogs.

See also

References

  1. ^ ""Beef Dishes"".
  2. ^ http://www.zarela.com/new_recipes/carne_chango.html