Mise en place your vocabulary with these culinary gems.
The natural juices from cooked meat, served as a light sauce. Not to be confused with gravy, because jus is French and therefore fancier, thinner, and three times the price. Ordering something 'au jus' makes you sound worldly even at Arby's.
The magical act of forcing two liquids that hate each other -- like oil and water -- to get along. Mayonnaise is an emulsion. So is hollandaise. Basically, a whisk is a couples therapist for condiments. One wrong move and it 'breaks' like a bad relationship.
The colorful outer layer of citrus fruit skin, grated or peeled into tiny pieces to add bright, concentrated flavor. It's what separates a good dish from a great one, and a microplane grater from a trip to the emergency room for grated knuckles.
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 finished dish that sat too long under heat lamps or got rejected, now destined for the trash or staff meal. The culinary equivalent of a failed project gathering dust.
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.
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. Also: A crystal-clear, intensely flavorful broth that's been clarified to the point of transparency, making it the overachiever of the soup world. Created by reducing meat or vegetable stock and using egg whites to trap impurities, it's what happens when regular broth goes to finishing school. Served hot as soup or chilled as jelly, because fancy people like options.
A tangy, mayonnaise-based sauce with pickles, capers, and herbs that makes everything taste better. It's basically fancy tartar sauce that went to finishing school in France and came back with a new accent and an attitude.
A thin, matchstick-like knife cut measuring 1/8 inch × 1/8 inch × 2-3 inches, positioned between bâtonnet and julienne in size. Honestly, at this point you're just cutting differently sized sticks.
The hierarchical kitchen organization system invented by Auguste Escoffier, basically a military chain of command but with more butter. It's how restaurants justify having seventeen people scream at each other to produce one plate of risotto.
Soaking ingredients in liquid to extract flavor or soften texture. It's basically marinating's pretentious cousin. Also: The process of soaking ingredients in liquid to soften, flavor, or preserve them. It's what happens when you leave fruit in booze and call it cooking.
A pastry chef, but the French title makes it sound like they graduated from Hogwarts instead of culinary school. These are the people who can make a croissant with 27 layers of butter and somehow still judge you for eating a Pop-Tart.
A cooking philosophy that uses every part of an animal, from snout to tail, because waste is bad and also because chefs realized they could charge premium prices for parts butchers used to throw away. Oxtail went from peasant food to $35 an entree real quick.
A sweet-and-sour sauce made by caramelizing sugar and adding vinegar. Sounds like a stomach condition but tastes like culinary enlightenment. It's what separates a $12 duck breast from a $42 duck breast -- two tablespoons of fancy vinegar sugar.
The fancy culinary term for "I turned it into charcoal," involving the chemical transformation of organic matter into carbon through excessive heat application. It's what happens when you answer one text while cooking and suddenly your dinner becomes a science experiment. Professional chefs call it technique; the rest of us call it ordering takeout.
A cheese shop, but saying it in French means the cheese costs four times as much and comes wrapped in paper instead of plastic. It's where you go to feel cultured while spending $30 on something that smells like gym socks and tastes like heaven.
A small round ramekin used for holding sauces, prepped ingredients, or garnishes. Named either for their resemblance to dishes in a monkey's tea party or because you'd have to be as chaotic as a monkey to organize your station without them.
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 decorative vegetable cut with seven sides producing a barrel or football shape—the knife cut that proves you had way too much free time.
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.
A rich, glossy sauce made by reducing brown stock and espagnole sauce for approximately eleven thousand years. It's the kitchen equivalent of a PhD thesis -- it takes forever, nobody fully understands it, and when it's done you have about two tablespoons.
A generous spread of soft cheese, cream cheese, or other spreadable ingredients, most famously associated with bagels. It's the Yiddish way of saying 'don't be stingy with the cream cheese.'
A fancy French term for putting one pot inside another pot of hot water. Essentially, you're giving your food a hot bath because apparently direct heat is too confrontational. Marie must have been very particular about her chocolate tempering.
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.