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French food vocab

By Ann | October 6, 2008

I am no French language expert, and so I offer up this post very humbly. For a better site on French vocabulary, I suggest you check out French-word-a-day. But after spending an entire afternoon looking for cheesecloth (and generally making an ass out of myself), I thought these few words might be helpful to food lovers.

étamine — (fem. noun) cheesecloth. Shop #1: After I asked politely for “du tissu pour préparer le fromage” (cloth to make cheese), the shopkeeper’s immediate response was: “Are you American?” “Why?” I asked. “Number one, your accent,” he replied. “Number two, you’re asking for something related to food.” Newsflash: Apparently all Americans are obsessed with food. Anyway, I had to give him credit for his powers of observation — 99% of French shopkeepers think I’m Japanese. As it turns out, he did not have any “cloth to make cheese,” nor did he know the name for it. Which brought me to Shop #2, where the clerk A) also had no idea what I was talking about, B) thought I was completely stark raving mad for wanting to make cheese, and C) suggested a fromager (cheesemaker) might have what I’m looking for (though we did not discuss where I would find said fromager). Finally I called E. Dehillerin, the famous Paris cookware shop where my inquiries for “le tissu” were answered in English (sigh). On the plus side, he also told me the correct word. (Stay tuned for a post on my visit to the shop.)

mie – (fem. noun) the interior, spongy part of the bread. Do we even have a term for this in English? I learned this word in La Grande Epicerie, at the bakery counter, when the woman asked me if I wanted mie noire (brown, wheat bread) or mie blanche (white bread) and I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what she was talking about. Luckily, she was patient and friendly and there was a lot of bread for her to illustrate the meaning of the word.   

barquette — (fem. noun) take-away box/container. A very, very useful word if you are buying a lentil salad, or olives, or anything for take-away. The on-line dictionary defines the word as a “punnet.” But my dico (le petit Robert) calls it “a small, rigid and light container (of plastic or aluminum) for foodstuffs.

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2 Responses to “French food vocab”

  1. nicole Says:
    October 20th, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    so…. where did you finally buy etamine??? I was on the hunt for it today. I was also trying to ask for cheese clothe.

  2. Ann Says:
    October 21st, 2011 at 7:41 am

    Nicole — I think I finally found it at A. Simon. 48-52 rue Montmartre, 2e tel: 01 42 33 71 65. Thanks for a walk down memory lane reviving this post! :)

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