Food Jargon of the Day: Housemade

housemade
Term used by restaurants to indicate food items prepared from scratch such as "housemade pickles," "housemade gnocchi," and "housemade horseradish." Replaces the more amateur-sounding "homemade." Courtesy of Newsweek.

Food Jargon of the Day: test tube meat and schmeat/shmeat

test tube meat
Meat produced via in vitro processes, i.e., grown in test tubes, rather than on farms. Test tube meat is an attempt to create humane, slaughter house-free meat.

schmeat/shmeat
Schmeat or shmeat, depending on your preferred spelling, is another term for "test tube meat." Coined by Dr. Vladimir Mironov, a biologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, who is working to culture meat from animal tissue.

Food Jargon of the Day: Wildharvesting & Urban Foraging

wildharvesting
fancy term for foraging.

urban foraging
foraging in urban spaces - finding wild foods and edibles in local fields, backyards, playgrounds, public land.

Food Jargon of the Day: Meat Cards

Meat Cards
Business cards created from "100% beef jerky" - contact information is seared onto the jerky with a laser. Seriously.

Food Jargon of the Day: Aporkalypse Now!

Aporkalypse Now!
term du jour used by journalists to refer to the swine flu epidemic.

Food Jargon of the Day: Gourmonsters

Gourmonsters
Food snobs, food police. Courtesy of the New York Post. Also see "Arugulance".

Food Jargon of the Day: Dry farming

Dry Farming

a type of farming practiced in arid areas without irrigation by planting drought-resistant crops and maintaining a fine surface tilth or mulch that protects the natural moisture of the soil from evaporation.

Food Jargon of the Day: S.O.L.E./ S.O.L.E. Food

S.O.L.E./ S.O.L.E Food
An acronym for "sustainable, organic, local and ethical" eating; a theory of eating that takes into account the numerous factors related to each of these concepts.
See also: http://tinyurl.com/dmxefj

Food Jargon of the Day: Arugulance

Arugulance
Food snobbery, typified by a penchant for arugula. From "The Aura of Arugulance," a NY Times Op Ed piece by Maureen Dowd. Used by Alice Waters in response to criticisms of arrogance and condescension:

“I’m just put into that arugulance place. I own a fancy restaurant. I own an expensive restaurant. I never thought of it as fancy. People don’t know we’re supporting 85 farms and ranches and all of that. And so my first thing I say, it’s going to cost more and I want to pay for my food. I go to the farmers’ market; it makes me feel like I’m making a donation.”

Hmmm....

Food Jargon of the Day: Community Supported Forage

Community Supported Forage (CSF)
Modeled on Community Supported Agriculture organic-farm boxes, forageSF, a San Francisco-based foraging subscription service, provides clients with a biweekly allotment of seasonal foraged products. This week's box includes: four kinds of wild mushrooms, foraged oranges, wild onions, sea beans and miner's lettuce

Food Jargon of the Day: Twecipes and Recessipes

twecipes
An extremely abbreviated recipe, published via Twitter, that provides cooking instructions in no more than 140 characters. The Observer reports:"There is a growing trend for people, including some leading chefs, to create micro-recipes - a single paragraph that tells users how to make an entire starter, main course or dessert - then transmit them via Twitter."

recesspes
Cost-saving recipes for cooking in a recession economy. ABC News reports: "Times are tough, and many of us are rediscovering the benefits of a home-cooked meal. The folks at the Food Network discovered that recently more people are searching the network's Web site looking for recipes that are easy on the waistline, as well as the wallet. In response, the Food Network has created what it is calling "recessipes" -- meals that will leave both your stomach and bank accounts full."

Today's Food Jargon Watch courtesy of The Food Section

Food Jargon of the Day: Traceability

Traceability
Web sites such as Find the Farmer, and special labels on the packages that let buyers learn about and even contact the farmers who produced their food. Courtesy of the NY Times. See The Oprah-ization of Food and Provenance of Food.

Food Jargon of the Day: Organic Junk Food/Vegan Junk Food

Organic Junk Food
Courtesy of Marion Nestle. Whether it's organic Oreos or regular Oreos: "Organic junk food is still junk food.”


Vegan Junk Food
(aka Vegan OK Junk Food )
Junk foods not made from any animal products nor animal by-products.

Food Jargon of The Day: Food Stamp Challenge

Food Stamp Challenge
Individuals who aren't on food stamps live on the allocation for their state for one month or one week. In 2007, in an effort to help raise hunger awareness, Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee took the “Food Stamp Challenge,” and lived on just $21 - or $3 per day - for one week. In a recent LA Times article, a journalist and his wife take the Food Stamp Challenge to save money to buy a house: "A couple takes the Food Stamp Challenge and discovers it is possible to eat healthfully on a tight budget. Careful planning and a home garden help." Right...

Food Jargon of the Day: The First Locavore

The First Locavore
New title given to Michelle Obama (formerly know as the "First Lady") after breaking ground for an organic garden at the White House.

Food Jargon of the Day: The Oprah-ization of Food

The Oprah-ization of Food

From an article in Advertising Age, "The Oprah-ization of Food" refers to the need for "our food to come with compelling stories." For example, Dole organic bananas are branded with a number you can enter on the company's website and find out to where it was picked and discover by whom. See food provenance.

Food Jargon of the Day: Edible Cocktails/Solid Cocktails

edible cocktails/solid cocktails
Cocktails that you eat instead of drink. According to an article in today's NY Times, solid cocktails offered by restaurants in NYC include a gelatinized Cuba Libre, a Ramos gin fizz marshmallow and a martini in the form of a pickle. Adult jello shots, anyone?

Food Jargon of the Day: Urban Gleaning

Urban Gleaning
Gleaning is the practice of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been mechanically harvested, or from fields that are not economically profitable to harvest. Urban gleaning is the practice of salvaging fruit from trees located in cities to provide low income residents with access to fresh fruit. For more information, checkout the Portland Fruit Tree Project, a gleaning initiative that organizes people in the Portland, Oregon to gather fruit before it falls, and make it available to those who need it most.

Food Jargon Watch: Imitation Edibles and In Vitro Meat

Imitation Edibles
All manner of fake food - from faux meats to near beer and liquid smoke. Mock foods seem to be the gastric meme of the moment with the current edition of VegNews focusing on faux meats, Emily Nunn's recent article in the Chicago Tribune on fake foods (from which the term "imitation edibles" is culled), and PETA's challenge to scientists to step up research into in vitro meats (see below).

In Vitro Meat
Laboratory produced meat "grown" from animal stem cells. In vitro meat is not yet a reality, but PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and make in vitro meat available to consumers. According to the PETA website, in vitro meat would enable the production of meat without killing any animals.

Food Jargon of the Day: Faux Meat

Faux Meat
Meat substitutes used by vegetarians and vegans. Some meat substitutes - tofu, seitan, tempeh - have been used by eastern cultures for eons, while others like tofurkey, meatless riblets, and vegan haggis are new additions to the vegetarian kitchen. Also known as "meat analog" and "mock meat."