The Law of Inverse Post Content

[the_gneech]

Once again, we see the Law of Inverse Post Content in action. Posts about my comics, Fictionlets, whatever, might get 10-20 comments total. A poll with the options "Zoinks! / Jinkeys! / Would You Do It For a Scooby Snack?" gets 45 votes and 42 comments (as of my last count).

Crazy.

So I'll follow it up with something just as pointless and see what the response is!

Why are "English Muffins" called that, when they're not English, and they're not muffins? They are kinda sorta like crumpets (which are English), but not really.

Hey, you UK readers: do you import English Muffins from the U.S.A.? I'd hate to think of you folks going through life without ever having enjoyed Thomas's best, especially after you loaned us the name. Seems to me they should be called Yankee Crumpets, not English Muffins.

While I'm thinking about it, why are French Fries called French, when they actually are English? The French Fried Potato (in America) is actually an adaptation of the English Chip. We still call fish and chips "fish and chips" -- but I suspect that has to do more with the fact that British actor Arthur Treacher used to have a line of fast food restaurants called "Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips" than any kind of linguistic loyalty.

What Americans call potato chips are actually crisps. Meanwhile, what we call cookies are actually biscuits, and what we call biscuits are more like, I dunno, muffins? Or again, sorta like crumpets. But not really.

Don't try to figure it out, it'll just hurt your brain.

-The Gneech

PS: Arthur Treacher's fish and chips were awful, by the way. A bag of grease with no flavor whatsoever, unless you added vinegar and salt -- in which case they were "vinegar and salt" flavor.

Comments

[chef-troy.livejournal.com]

I can answer at least one of those. "To French" as a verb means (if you're a cook, anyway, and not a horny teenager) to cut something lengthwise into strips (also seen in "french-cut green beans," which are also slivered lengthwise). So "frenched" fried potatoes became "french fried potatoes" through elision, and then "french fries" through the Yankee penchant for shortening things.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

And generally the chips that come with fish are a lot thicker than fries you get at McDonald's, so maybe those don't qualify as Frenched?

You're assuming the British terms are correct. However, potato chips were invented in the US, so Americans should be the ones to lay claim to the name.

[frustratedpilot]

Besides, "french cut" and fried potatoes and onions was Napoleon Bonaparte's favorite food to eat on the march. I don't know how popular fried spud was before the Nineteenth Century, but there is a French claim to the food that is valid.

Since he was a Dictator, could we call them Fascist Fries? :|

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

Napoleon wasn't facist, though. He was a monarch. As I understand it, he usurped the French government from the monarchs through military might, rather than political clout.

Have teh best

-=TK

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Well, chips are roughly equivalent to "steak fries" ... as opposed to the things at McDonald's, which are "string fries". :)

re: the British terms, I still insist that men wear "pants"...

-The Gneech

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Neat. :)

-TG

[confusedoo.livejournal.com]

Well, the etymology of muffin is somewhat in question... it might be from a French word that means soft, or a low German word for cake. Either way, muffin can be applicable to either of these small fluffy baked goods. The difference between the two is levening. English muffins use yeast, while other muffins use chemical leveners like baking powder.

As for the fries/crisps thing, first of all, it is the Dutch who most often claim the invention of the french fry. (I'm not inclined to believe that a single group came up with this and then disseminated it... it's too common a cooking method not to have been come up with by many cooks.) Linquisticly we call them french fries because of the cut. Cutting things into long thin strips is also reffered to as 'french cut.' This is pure speculation on my part, but I suspect this is because chefs who didn't know french saw the word julienne, and just transfered that to 'french.' Anyway, it's not just for fries, as I grew up eating french cut green beans (frozen from a box).

As for biscuit, it comes from a word for twice baked, which is completely inaccurate to modern times as neither cookies nor buscuits are twice baked now. At any rate both bicuits (american) and cookies are both based on chemical leveners (i.e. baking powder or similar), but they just evolved to focus on different aspects of baked good destiny, with cookies going to sweet and denser, while biscuits focus on light and fluffy strata. As for the word choice, cookies were popularized by the Pennsylvania Dutch, (Amish) who are actually not Dutch but of German decent. (The word for german, Deutsch being misinterpreted by other settlers as Dutch.) Anyway, they invented deserts such as apple crisp, the doughnut, and popularized the cookie. They called them kukje, meaning little cake in their dialect, and that became cookie. That's why we call them cookies and not biscuits.

One culinary legend about how the potato chip got it's name is from a restaurant in Saratoga where the customer kept sending back his fried potatoes as being too soggy. In frustration the cook shaved the potatos wafer thin and fried them, they were added to the menu as saratoga chips. I'm not sure I believe that, but I have read it in a couple different places.

So there you go... I am a font of semi-useless knowledge. I totally kick ass at Trivial Pursuit.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

Plus, how often do you hear the term biscuit sheet instead of cookie sheet?

[exatron.livejournal.com]

Not very often. You're more likely to hear "baking sheet."

[annechen-melo.livejournal.com]

Ah - Biscotti (plural of Italian biscotto) "twice baked" Etymology: Italian, from Medieval Latin bis coctus, meaning "twice cooked". Cf. English biscuit and German zwieback.

Foodie etymological discussions, mmmmmmm...

[torakiyoshi.livejournal.com]

I recently explored English Muffins on Wikipedia, after teasing iamme_uk about what do yon loyal subjects call English muffins. Upon looking it up, it seems that English muffins are indeed a grain-based variant on crumpets, as are what we simply call a muffin. The separation on their side is that Thomas makes simple muffins and your bulbously baked, buttered, bran breakfast is a raised muffin. I'm not sure if that's the broad usage in England, but it makes perfect sense to me. *Shrugs*

Kukje is a derivate from a Germanic word. In new high German, it's Kuchchen (little cooked, as the word for cake is Kuche, or "cooked") or Plätzchen, "little plate." I find that cookie is therefore a highly appropos word for our biscuits, as they are tiny little cakes that are well-cooked (baked).

And as to Jinkes versus Zoinks, Gneech: well, I've tried it, and my meaningless drivel posts also return zero comments. It should come as a compliment, then, that people will reply to your drivel posts instead of ignoring them. *Shrugs*

Have teh best

-=TK

[hantamouse.livejournal.com]

If you're expecting languages to make sense, you've been in tech jobs too long. Remember your degree.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

http://www.arthurtreachers.com/

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

The restaurant remains, but Arthur Treacher is long gone (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0871546/).

-TG

[exatron.livejournal.com]

From what I remember, danishes fall into that category too, but I can't remember what people from Denmark call them.

Darn you for making me crave an english muffin, with some strawberry jelly spread into the nooks and crannies.

Etymology isn't pointless. You never know what you might learn from the discussion.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I favor peanut butter myself. :)

-TG

[usagiweaver.livejournal.com]

I thought that french fries started in Belgium as Pomme Frites.

ACK! The Gneech's random pointlessness broke mah brain!!!!

[mammallamadevil.livejournal.com]

staring at the haze from the Delta Club room at LAX....

MLD

Re: ACK! The Gneech's random pointlessness broke mah brain!!!!

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Jinkies!

-TG

Re: ACK! The Gneech's random pointlessness broke mah brain!!!!

[mammallamadevil.livejournal.com]

I'm SO going to make you pay....(laugh)....

MLD

[daisho.livejournal.com]

I am British; as far as I'm concerned, muffins are savouries, generally heated in the toaster and only recently relating in any way to confectionery in paper cups. They are also preferable to crumpets, because they are made from grain rather than potato, as proper crumpets are.

In answer to your first question, I submit that football provides a parallel. Because association football predates the variant of rugby football generally practised on the opposite side of the Atlantic, we Britons refer to the latter as American football -- yet Americans feel no need to do so. In the same way, we don't call our version of the muffin "English muffin", while those who are not English, might.

French fries are distinct from British chips, really, since they take their name from their French preparation process, julienne -- fine chopping. The term French fried potatoes, as it originally applied to them, was ultimately shortened to "fries". Chips, meanwhile, are fairly thick-cut, at least twice and often three or four times the diameter of a French fry.

As for American biscuits, they're more like savoury scones than anything else we have over here. :)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I didn't know crumpets were made from potato. :) Or if I did, I forgot.

-TG

[daisho.livejournal.com]

Well, one can find wheat-based things purporting to be crumpets -- they might even look like crumpets. But really, they're nothing more than pretenders to the true yeast-and-potato crown.

Thinking about it, that might not be terribly pleasant to wear. Which is probably why I prefer muffins.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall the one time I bought "crumpets" from the international foods section of a Trader Joe's, they were basically something halfway between an english muffin, and a really fat pancake. I don't know if they were made from potato or not, but I assumed they were some variety of yeast-based bread product.

-The Gneech

[copperwolf.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting mental image. Now I want to see a picture of you wearing a muffin on your head.

[daisho.livejournal.com]

I shall arrange this forthwith. :)

[tr-wolf.livejournal.com]

Dude, crumpets are not made from potato. If you get something that IS potato it's a potato cake which is considerably more like what the Americans call an English Muffin.

Muffins over here nowadays tend to be like chocolate muffins, sweet etc.

What Americans call English Muffins are not what we call muffins, they're closer to a savoury scone.

Crumpets I cant even describe, they're bready kinda things with holes running vertically through them, and you toast them, and they are not made of potato!

Here's a pic: http://www.anchordairy.co.uk/userfiles/image/crumpets.jpg

As for the chips thing... yes, we call 'potato chips' "crisps", but what we call "chips" are different from french fries. French fries are longer and thinner, and yes "steak cut fries" are closer to what we'd call chips, but they're what we'd call Oven Chips, cos they're flat, heh. Proper "chip shop chips" are usually a bit fatter (and greasier, but what can you do, its tradition, lol). If you want proper style chips you need to go somewhere like Harry Ramsden's in Epcot (the one in Epcot is the last remaining good Harry Ramsdens... they've gone right downhill in the UK!), or a GOOD UK themed pub.

Oh! Also what the British generically call "tea" is what Americans tend to call "English breakfast" and is served with sugar and milk.

So... yeah.

[daisho.livejournal.com]

Anyone referring to me as "dude" is clearly too Americanised to be a reliable source on crumpets. ;) The same could be said of Tesco though, I fear. I was horrified to see a packet of their own-brand muffins with "English muffins" emblazoned on the side yesterday. Onward, the march of US cultural hegemony!

More seriously, crumpets made with flour do exist in abundance, but as far as I'm concerned, they're not quite the genuine article in the way that the potato-based variant (http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Potato%20crumpets) is. Then again, I'm doubtless biased because my family have always made them the latter way.

[tr-wolf.livejournal.com]

No, those are potato cakes. Crumpets are bready thingies!

I think to be honest, most Brits and Americans would refer to crumpets as the type I linked to, the idea of potato crumpets is horrible to be honest :/

[frustratedpilot]

Aside: when I saw this post, I immediately thought of that deranged Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf.

Just when I thought I had proven myself to be mundane, I had to think such things.

[kylet.livejournal.com]

Oh dear lord, yes. American "football" is the least appropriate term EVAR.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Fish & Chips might be a bit regional, or I grew up in a region that didn't use that term much. A meal of deep fried fish, french fries, and usually some cole slaw is what I think of when I hear the words "fish fry." Of course, that's in the upper midwest, mainly Wisconsin. I expect "fish fry" conjures up other images in other areas, especially as I had a bit of difficulty finding a fish fry when I went looking for such after moving to Minnesota.

[frostdemn.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's really tricky.
But I think from now on I'll call them Yankee Crumpets. Though I've never had a crumpet.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Yankee Crumpets FTW! ;)

-TG

[indigoangelcat.livejournal.com]

O.o i want food now... possibly a American fry or a CHINESE fortune cookie.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Actually, fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco, IIRC. Nuts, eh? :)

-TG

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I want to try biscuits! I think they're like what we call scones, but you wouldn't eat scones with gravy but with jam and clotted cream.

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Biscuits are usually not sweet like scones (or at least, the scones I've had). Drop-biscuits are fairly like scones in texture, but flaky biscuits are more like croissants or other pastries.

Come to the U.S. sometime, and I'll arrange a biscuit or two for ya! ;)

-The Gneech

[rhanlav.livejournal.com]

Don't forget Danishes! Are they really Danish?

--Salen, posting from the Jax Airport.

[lowen-kind.livejournal.com]

And is the Black Forest Cake really from the Black Forest? Same goes for German chocolate, though it migt have orginated in the Bavaria section of Germany.
And is java really from Java?

One non-food misnomer: A. Hitler was not German! He was Austrian, by birth.

[elektron.livejournal.com]

But have you ever heard of a chocolate chip biscuit?

Mmmmmm, cookies.