Different names for foods - UK/US
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lisaabenjamin wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »Beckilovespizza wrote: »I went to Michigan once and had 'biscuits' for breakfast they were like English muffins (also just known as muffins here in the UK). I was totally expecting Rich Tea biccies or equivalent.
Either (1) they were out of biscuits and just substituted an English muffin without telling you, or (2) they made really bad biscuits (but even in Michigan, which I don't think qualifies as the biscuit capital of the U.S., a bad biscuit should be readily distinguishable from an English muffin -- it has a lot more fat in it, so the texture is very different --a biscuit is closer to a croissant than to an English muffin), or (3) your unfortunate foreign palate lacks the ability to distinguish between a (U.S.) biscuit and a (U.S.) English muffin -- rather like a non-native English speaker whose native tongue doesn't have the same set of phonemes as English, so they have lost the ability they were born with to hear and pronounce "r" and "l" or "b" and "v" as different sounds. If the latter is the case, I weep for you. A (U.S.) biscuit can be a sublime thing, all flaky and tender, still warm from oven, not really needing butter but able to dance with the butter to greater gustatory heights than either could achieve on its own. Sigh.
Maybe our British palates can't tell the difference between a US "biscuit" and a so-called "English" muffin, but I think Beckilovespizza was trying to make the point that a "biscuit" in the UK is actually what Americans would call a cookie. That would be weird for breakfast. (Then again, in the US, maybe not).
Yes, that was what i meant, thanks! @lissabenjamin
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I'm a Canadian living in the UK. Biscuits back home were savory scones, dropped with a spoon rather than cut on the baking sheet.0
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Nothing separates a people like a common language.0
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This thread is funny. I'm bi-dialect-al, having lived back and forth between the UK and US and being married to a Yank.
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As am I. My wife is a Brit, but I'm a Canuck with a "shed load" of American friends.RedheadQuine wrote: »This thread is funny. I'm bi-dialect-al, having lived back and forth between the UK and US and being married to a Yank.
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lisaabenjamin wrote: »Cheese (uk) = processed plastic (US)
Thank god we followed french tradition for good cheese. One more heavily processed, rubbery "cheddar" in the brit tradition would drive me bananahammock.0 -
As a Canadian I am enjoying this thread because we use some of these British words for foods, some US words, and we also have our own words for things.
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DawnieB1977 wrote: »I always used to wonder what a biscuit was in the US! When I read a book and they'd have biscuits and gravy. I thought it would be a bit weird pouring gravy over a custard cream! I think gravy is different too, more creamy in the US?
A biscuit is a brilliant thing.
Flour, baking powder, salt, lard/shortening - cut all those together in a bowl. Add buttermilk, or milk, or water but just enough to barely bind it. Fold it together, pat out, cut and bake. It's flaky, bread like. When it comes out of the oven, brush it with butter.
For the gravy for that, you start with a bechamel and add breakfast sausage, and that breakfast sausage would be a more herbed, less salted version of bangers.0 -
For brit biscuits, is that the generic term? Or is that a specific type?
Would you call a tuxedo, a shortbread, and a gingersnap the same thing? Are those all biscuits?0 -
DawnieB1977 wrote: »UK-US
herbal infusion - herbal tea - this is for those that solely for drinking
tisane - still called herbal tea - this is for those that are supposed to be medicinal
Oh, and to add to the fun apple cider issue, in the USA, we also have something called Apple Jack - where you take alcoholic (hard) apple cider and cool it to freezing, skimming of the ice that forms and therefore raising the alcohol content.
Rootbeer (a soda) is an American thing that you don't really find in the UK - most UK folks I know who tried it when they came to American thought it tasted like cough syrup.
Most common chocolate in the UK: cadbury
Most common chocolate in the US: Hershey's
I thought root beer was like our ginger beer? I've never tried it in the US though.
Jacket potato (UK) = baked potato (US)
I always used to wonder what a biscuit was in the US! When I read a book and they'd have biscuits and gravy. I thought it would be a bit weird pouring gravy over a custard cream! I think gravy is different too, more creamy in the US?
Don't know about typical Brit gravy, but there are several types I'm familiar with.
Brown gravy is made from the fat rendered by cooking turkey or chicken or beef etc. With a thickener (usual flour, sometimes corn starch) and broth or stock.
White or cream gravy is made the same way, but with milk (or half and half) rather than broth. Usually made from the drippings of pork breakfast sausage and heavy on the pepper. Amazing served over split buttermilk biscuits with the crumbled sausage.
Then there's red eye gravy. This is made from country ham drippings and with coffee rather than broth. Not my favorite.
I'm from a good old southern family. We know gravy.
Oh and I think ginger beer is called ginger ale here. I think root beer is awful, but I love good ginger ale.0 -
DawnieB1977 wrote: »UK-US
herbal infusion - herbal tea - this is for those that solely for drinking
tisane - still called herbal tea - this is for those that are supposed to be medicinal
Oh, and to add to the fun apple cider issue, in the USA, we also have something called Apple Jack - where you take alcoholic (hard) apple cider and cool it to freezing, skimming of the ice that forms and therefore raising the alcohol content.
Rootbeer (a soda) is an American thing that you don't really find in the UK - most UK folks I know who tried it when they came to American thought it tasted like cough syrup.
Most common chocolate in the UK: cadbury
Most common chocolate in the US: Hershey's
I thought root beer was like our ginger beer? I've never tried it in the US though.
Jacket potato (UK) = baked potato (US)
I always used to wonder what a biscuit was in the US! When I read a book and they'd have biscuits and gravy. I thought it would be a bit weird pouring gravy over a custard cream! I think gravy is different too, more creamy in the US?
Don't know about typical Brit gravy, but there are several types I'm familiar with.
Brown gravy is made from the fat rendered by cooking turkey or chicken or beef etc. With a thickener (usual flour, sometimes corn starch) and broth or stock.
White or cream gravy is made the same way, but with milk (or half and half) rather than broth. Usually made from the drippings of pork breakfast sausage and heavy on the pepper. Amazing served over split buttermilk biscuits with the crumbled sausage.
Then there's red eye gravy. This is made from country ham drippings and with coffee rather than broth. Not my favorite.
I'm from a good old southern family. We know gravy.
Oh and I think ginger beer is called ginger ale here. I think root beer is awful, but I love good ginger ale.
Biscuits and sausage gravy is the best breakfast comfort food I can think of. Highly recommended for any visitor to the American South.0 -
5stringjeff wrote: »DawnieB1977 wrote: »UK-US
herbal infusion - herbal tea - this is for those that solely for drinking
tisane - still called herbal tea - this is for those that are supposed to be medicinal
Oh, and to add to the fun apple cider issue, in the USA, we also have something called Apple Jack - where you take alcoholic (hard) apple cider and cool it to freezing, skimming of the ice that forms and therefore raising the alcohol content.
Rootbeer (a soda) is an American thing that you don't really find in the UK - most UK folks I know who tried it when they came to American thought it tasted like cough syrup.
Most common chocolate in the UK: cadbury
Most common chocolate in the US: Hershey's
I thought root beer was like our ginger beer? I've never tried it in the US though.
Jacket potato (UK) = baked potato (US)
I always used to wonder what a biscuit was in the US! When I read a book and they'd have biscuits and gravy. I thought it would be a bit weird pouring gravy over a custard cream! I think gravy is different too, more creamy in the US?
Don't know about typical Brit gravy, but there are several types I'm familiar with.
Brown gravy is made from the fat rendered by cooking turkey or chicken or beef etc. With a thickener (usual flour, sometimes corn starch) and broth or stock.
White or cream gravy is made the same way, but with milk (or half and half) rather than broth. Usually made from the drippings of pork breakfast sausage and heavy on the pepper. Amazing served over split buttermilk biscuits with the crumbled sausage.
Then there's red eye gravy. This is made from country ham drippings and with coffee rather than broth. Not my favorite.
I'm from a good old southern family. We know gravy.
Oh and I think ginger beer is called ginger ale here. I think root beer is awful, but I love good ginger ale.
Biscuits and sausage gravy is the best breakfast comfort food I can think of. Highly recommended for any visitor to the American South.
I'll keep that in mind if I visit! I've only been to California and Nevada. I don't think I ate anything particularly 'American'. I didn't even try the chocolate. I regret not trying sourdough bread in San Francisco.
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You'll get better biscuits and gravy in CA.
I've had them throughout the east, south, midwest, and west. CA has the best, hands down.
Although I did find one place in WA that is fairly legit.0 -
5stringjeff wrote: »Biscuits and sausage gravy is the best breakfast comfort food I can think of. Highly recommended for any visitor to the American South.
Nope, been there done that. Cat sick.0 -
For brit biscuits, is that the generic term? Or is that a specific type?
Would you call a tuxedo, a shortbread, and a gingersnap the same thing? Are those all biscuits?
One of them is an item of clothing.
In general biscuits is a wide term and would encompass ginger snaps, shortbread, chocolate coated biscuits etc etc
Here's a search for "biscuit" at a UK grocery store
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Brown Sauce (UK) = Steak sauce, sorta (US). There's no exact eqiuv. in the US.
Salad Cream (UK) = Salad Dressing, sorta (US). There's no exact equiv. in the US. Tastes a bit like mayo.
Pastie (UK) = Empanada or Calzone are closest (US) but not quite.
ploughman's pickle/ Branston pickle (UK) = Chutney/Pickled Chutney/Relish (US). It's not common stateside.
Soured cream (UK) = Sour Cream (US)
Bangers (UK) = Sausage (US)
Mash (UK) = Mashed potatoes (US)
Fairy Cake (UK) = Cupcake (US)
Jam Roly-Poly (UK) = Jelly Roll/Jelly Roll Cake (US)
Whelk (UK) = Snail (US)
Kebab/Kebap (UK) is doner kebab. In the US, if you say kebab, people think you mean shish kebab (served on a stick).
Milky tea (US) = Tea with milk (US)
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britishbroccoli wrote: »Pastie (UK) = Empanada or Calzone are closest (US) but not quite.
Pastie (US) = Nipple cover for exotic dancers. What's the British word for that?
(I dare anyone to google image search this. You get a nice selection of delicious looking pastries mixed with near-naked women. LOL)0 -
Nipple covers or tassels0
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lisaabenjamin wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »Beckilovespizza wrote: »I went to Michigan once and had 'biscuits' for breakfast they were like English muffins (also just known as muffins here in the UK). I was totally expecting Rich Tea biccies or equivalent.
Either (1) they were out of biscuits and just substituted an English muffin without telling you, or (2) they made really bad biscuits (but even in Michigan, which I don't think qualifies as the biscuit capital of the U.S., a bad biscuit should be readily distinguishable from an English muffin -- it has a lot more fat in it, so the texture is very different --a biscuit is closer to a croissant than to an English muffin), or (3) your unfortunate foreign palate lacks the ability to distinguish between a (U.S.) biscuit and a (U.S.) English muffin -- rather like a non-native English speaker whose native tongue doesn't have the same set of phonemes as English, so they have lost the ability they were born with to hear and pronounce "r" and "l" or "b" and "v" as different sounds. If the latter is the case, I weep for you. A (U.S.) biscuit can be a sublime thing, all flaky and tender, still warm from oven, not really needing butter but able to dance with the butter to greater gustatory heights than either could achieve on its own. Sigh.
Maybe our British palates can't tell the difference between a US "biscuit" and a so-called "English" muffin, but I think Beckilovespizza was trying to make the point that a "biscuit" in the UK is actually what Americans would call a cookie. That would be weird for breakfast. (Then again, in the US, maybe not).
Oh, I got that point. I just didn't want the comment to mislead people as to what a U.S. biscuit is. It's not remotely similar to what is called an "English muffin" in the U.S.
Biscuit: high fat for a bread product, tender, flaky, frequently served with "red-eye" or sausage gravy, at home both at breakfast and dinner, usually baked on site if you're getting it at restaurant (if it's not baked on site, don't bother -- and don't bother with the pitiful refrigerated cylinders of biscuits found in the grocery store).
"English muffin": much less fat, known for "nooks and crannies," usually served toasted with butter and/or jam or as the bottom layer of eggs benedict, pretty much only served for breakfast, practically never baked on site if you're getting it at a restaurant (come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen an English muffin that wasn't the packaged product of a commercial/industrial bakery, as opposed to one freshly baked by a home cook, restaurant, or retail bakery that does its own in-house baking).
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