French to English Food Glossary - Patricia Wells

Croquembouche: choux pastry rounds filled with cream and coated with a sugar glaze, often served in a conical tower
at special events.
Croquette: ground meat, fish, fowl, or vegetables bound with eggs or sauce, shaped into various forms, usually coated
in bread crumbs, and deep fried.
Crosne: small, unusual tuber; with a subtle artichoke-like flavor; known as a Chinese or Japanese artichoke.
Crottin de Chavignol: small flattened ball of goat's-milk cheese from the Loire valley.Croustade: usually small pastrywrapped
dish; also regional southwestern pastry filled with prunes and/or apples.
Croûte (en): crust; (in) pastry.
Croûte de sel (en): (in) a salt crust.
Croûtons: small cubes of toasted or fried bread.
Cru: raw.
Crudité: raw vegetable.
Crustacé(s): crustacean(s).
Cuillière (à la): (to be eaten with a) spoon.
Cuisse (de poulet): leg or thigh (chicken drumstick).
Cuissot, cuisseau: haunch of veal, venison, or wild boar.
Cuit(e): cooked.
Cul: haunch or rear; usually of red meat.
Culotte: rump, usually of beef.
Cultivateur: truck farmer; fresh vegetable soup.
Curcuma: turmeric.
Cure-dent: toothpick
D
Damier: checkerboard; arrangement of vegetables or other ingredients in alternating colors like a checkerboard; also, a
cake with such a pattern of light and dark pieces.
Darne: a rectangular portion of fish filet; also a fish steak, usually of salmon.
Dariole: truncated cone or oval-shaped baking mold.
Dartois: puff pastry rectangles layered with an almond cream filling as a dessert, or stuffed with meat or fish as an
hors-d'oeuvre.
Datte (de mer): date (date-shaped prized wild Mediterranean mussel).
Daube: a stew, usually of beef lamb, or mutton, with red wine, onions, and/or tomatoes; specialty of many regions,
particularly Provençe and the Atlantic coast.
Dauphin: cow's-milk cheese shaped like a dauphin, or dolphin; from the North.
Daurade: sea bream, similar to porgy, the most prized of a group of ocean fish known as dorade.
Décaféiné or déca: decaffeinated coffee.
Décortiqué(e): shelled or peeled.
Dégustation: tasting or sampling.
Déjeuner: lunch.
Demi: half; also, an 8-ounce (250 ml) glass of beer; also, a half-bottle of wine.
Demi-deuil: in half mourning; poached (usually chicken) with sliced truffles inserted under the skin; also, sweetbreads
with a truffled white sauce.
Demi-glace: concentrated beef-based sauce lightened with consommé, or a lighter brown sauce.
Demi-sec: usually refers to goat cheese that is in the intermediate aging stage between one extreme of soft and fresh
and the other extreme of hard and aged.
Demi-sel (buerre): lightly salted (butter).
Demi-tasse: small cup; after-dinner coffee cup.
Demoiselle de canard: marinated raw duck tenderloin; also called mignon de canard.
Demoiselles de Cherbourg: small lobsters from the town of Cherbourg in Normandy, cooked in a court-bouillon and
served in cooking juices. Also, restaurant name for Breton lobsters weighing 300 to 400 grams (10 to 13 ounces).
Dentelle: lace; a portion of meat or fish so thinly sliced as to suggest a resemblance. Also, large lace-thin sweet crêpe.
Dent, denté: one of a generic group of Mediterranean fish known as dorade, similar to porgy.
Dents-de-lion: dandelion salad green; also called pissenlit.
Dés: diced pieces.
Désossé: boned.
Copyright Patricia Wells Ltd. All Rights Reserved
www.patriciawells.com
13