Mise en place your vocabulary with these culinary gems.
The art of preparing cured meats, or more commonly, the Instagram-famous board of meats, cheeses, fruits, and crackers arranged so beautifully that eating it feels like vandalism. Every millennial has attempted a charcuterie board. Most are just Lunchables with better lighting.
Raw vegetables arranged on a platter, which is literally just a veggie tray from the grocery store but spoken in French so you can serve it at a dinner party without shame. Add a ramekin of hummus and suddenly you're 'hosting.'
A smooth, strained sauce made from pureed fruits or vegetables. It's what happens when you put berries in a blender and then run the result through a strainer so you can charge $14 more for dessert. The fancy zigzag on your plate? That's coulis doing overtime.
A knife technique where you roll up leafy herbs or greens and slice them into elegant thin ribbons. It sounds like a French ballet move but it's really just aggressive lettuce rolling. It exists solely so chefs can feel superior about cutting basil.
Tomatoes that have been peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped -- basically tomatoes that have been through a full spa treatment before being allowed into your dish. The amount of effort involved is wildly disproportionate to the result, which is... chopped tomatoes.
Removing impurities from butter (making ghee) or clearing cloudy stock until it's transparent. The pursuit of purity through heat and patience, or egg whites if you're making consommé.
An ingredient, technique, or presentation that screams 'I went to culinary school' with unnecessary complexity or pretension. Often involves tweezers, foams, or deconstructed versions of simple foods.
A crystal-clear soup made by clarifying stock with a protein raft, resulting in a liquid so transparent you can read through it. The soup that proves you have monk-like patience and impeccable technique.
A French designation indicating a specific vineyard or group of vineyards recognized for superior quality and distinct characteristics, essentially wine's way of having a VIP section. This classification system ranks properties based on terroir, tradition, and prestige, with terms like 'Premier Cru' and 'Grand Cru' sending wine prices into the stratosphere. It's real estate rankings for grapes that somehow justify charging $300 for fermented juice.
An edible container made from bread, pastry, or even rice that holds various fillings, proving that the French turn even serving vessels into billable food items. The ancestor of the bread bowl, but with class.
A French cooking technique where food (usually duck) takes a leisurely bath in its own fat at low temperatures for hours, emerging ridiculously tender and flavorful. It's preservation through decadence, originally invented before refrigeration as a way to keep meat edible for months. The culinary equivalent of a spa day that makes everything delicious.
A circular piece of parchment paper placed directly on simmering food to control evaporation and maintain gentle heat distribution. French ingenuity proving that sometimes the best kitchen tool is literally paper with a hole in it.
The fancy chocolate that pastry chefs use for coating and enrobing confections, containing extra cocoa butter for that glossy, snappy finish. It's what separates professional bonbons from your melted chocolate chips, requiring proper tempering and a significant hit to your wallet. Regular chocolate melts into a sad puddle; couverture transforms into edible art.
A potent French liqueur made by Carthusian monks who apparently took their vow of silence more seriously than their vow of sobriety. Available in green (stronger) and yellow (merely strong), it's that mysterious herbal spirit that tastes like 130 secret ingredients and poor decisions. Also the name of the distinctive yellow-green color that looks great on vintage cars and terrible on bridesmaid dresses.
The dreaded shift combination where you close the restaurant late at night and then open it early the next morning, getting maybe four hours of sleep between. Inhumane but surprisingly common.
A leafy green vegetable that looks like celery mated with spinach and had rainbow babies, with colorful stems ranging from white to neon pink. Also known as Swiss chard (despite not being particularly Swiss), this beet relative offers nutritious greens that taste slightly bitter and earthy. It's what you buy when you want to feel healthy but kale seems too trendy.
A specialist in selecting, aging, and selling cheese who can discourse on terroir, aging techniques, and flavor profiles with the intensity of a sommelier discussing Grand Cru. The person you pretend to understand when they describe cheese as 'barnyard-forward.'
A small, flat sausage wrapped in caul fat instead of traditional casing, offering self-basting properties and rustic elegance. French charcuterie's way of proving that sometimes the best wrapper is internal organs.
A junior cook or apprentice in a professional kitchen, usually fresh out of culinary school and eager to prove themselves. They're one step above dishwasher and several years away from not crying in the walk-in.
Tomatoes that have been blanched, peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped—basically tomatoes that have been through a spa treatment. The term can apply to other coarsely chopped ingredients too.
The magical word that means your shift is over and you can finally stop smiling through the pain. Usually followed by the fastest clock-out in human history and the sweet exodus toward a beer.
To give something away for free, usually to apologize for mistakes or impress VIPs. Management's favorite way to fix problems that cooks created, using the restaurant's money.
French for "at the home of," used to make any establishment sound infinitely more sophisticated than it actually is. Slap this in front of any name and suddenly your food truck becomes an intimate dining experience. It's the linguistic equivalent of putting a white tablecloth on a card table.
The head cook who runs a restaurant kitchen with the authority of a drill sergeant and the stress levels of an air traffic controller. Traditionally the person responsible for menu creation, staff management, and throwing the occasional pan when orders back up. In home cooking circles, it's become a pretentious way to say 'person who watches too much Food Network.'