Written by Martin Bentham and published in The Observer under the headline:
Garçon! There's a silly French word in my soup
Fed up with restaurant menus that talk about carpaccios, daubes and tagines? Well, at last, a backlash has begun against the proliferation of foreign words littering the menus of modern British restaurants.
The latest edition of the Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine, the bible of the food industry, tears into the trend for using 'absurd' and 'fraudulent' words from French, Italian and other languages to describe what are often straightforward dishes that could be described simply in English.
Among the terms singled out for ridicule are 'millefeuille of aubergine' - which bears no resemblance to a puff pastry cake filled with jam and cream - and a 'capuccino of white beans' that has nothing to do with coffee. Scorn is also directed at a 'gateau of grilled vegetables', hardly suitable for those with a sweet tooth, and a 'bouillabaisse of sardines', which appears to have little connection with the Provençale soup or stew the name suggests.
The article is by former chef and restaurant critic Bill Knott, who says that such terms are a nonsense.
'The game of gastronomic Chinese whispers, in which a modish, foreign-sounding dish goes through so many incarnations that it has become completely meaningless, is all the rage,' he writes. 'Toast becomes bruschetta or crostini, a toasted sandwich is now a panini, a sauce is a jus or a coulis, and a stew is a daube or a tagine.'
He says that not only are the terms incomprehensible, they are also wrong. 'Many are thoroughly inaccurate and deeply misleading. Dishes I have seen on smart menus range from the faintly absurd to the distinctly fraudulent. Many chefs seem to think that food sounds better if it's not written in English.'
Michel Roux Jr, chef at London's Le Gavroche restaurant, which has three Michelin stars, said that he was also fed up with ludicrous descriptions.
'A carpaccio of courgette, what the hell is that? A carpaccio is of beef, not courgette. Similarly, you have a navarin of lobster, when it should be a navarin of lamb. It's totally inaccurate, and what annoys me even more is that nine times out of 10 the words are mis-spelt.
'I can understand and forgive a little bit of it when it's used in a clever way, by people who understand the terms, but if the words are just used as embellishment to dress up a rather sad menu, forget it.'
Marcus Wareing, chef at Petrus restaurant in London, said foreign words could be justified, but only if they were accurate and the quality of the food matched the description.
'I don't think there's anything wrong with using millefeuille or capuccino - it's quite nice - but it depends on what is actually being cooked. There is an element in cooking and restaurants that writes better than it delivers. It is very easy to put words on paper, but not so easy to put something exceptional on a plate.'
Knott said he had been prompted to speak out by the increasingly baffling menus with which he was confronted. Some, he suspected, used elaborate language in an attempt to justify higher prices.
'Some restaurants think that if you call something a daube you can charge £12, whereas if you said it was a stew you could probably only charge £8. At least with Italian and French menus you are supplied with a translation, but with modern British food many people just don't know what they are getting.
To help bemused diners, here are a few French translations which may (or may not) be helpful:
Hachis parmentier Shepherd's pie
Pot au feu d'agneau aux pommes de terre et aux oignons Lancashire hotpot
Saucisses en pote au four Toad in the hole
Boudin noir Black pudding
Feuilleté de boeuf et de foie Steak and kidney pie
Boule aux épices et aux fruits secs Spotted dick
