Saturday, April 5, 2014

E is for Effilé and Émincé


Both our terms, from the French, have to do with slicing thinly. Well, one of them has more than one meaning depending upon the food being cut. Isn’t that interesting?

Émince is a misunderstood word by most of us home cooks. Sounds like “mince”, doesn’t it? But émincé means to slice very thinly (think paper thin) rather than pulverize. In French, their word for our “mince” is entirely different. This is an example of words that appear to be cognates that are not.

Émincé is more like julienned, but the food is cut shorter than julienned food. Typically, you émincé meats, but the word can also apply to fruits and veggies.

Effilé, on the other hand, can also mean “thinly slice” when referring to, say, almonds or pistachios. I use almonds like that in some of my dishes calling for almond slices (not slivers--slivers are like wedges). Lots of baked goods call for sliced almonds to add crunch. I buy sliced almonds, rather than effilé them--too hard, too dangerous for a clumsy cook like me. Wish I had better knife skills, but there you go!

However, effilé, in a different food context, changes meaning drastically. When referring to haricots (beans), to effilé them is to remove that fibrous string running its length and to snap off the top--sounds like “stringing beans”, doesn’t it. Yep.

Impress folks at your next dinner party by referring to how you effilé-d and émincé-d your way through the food prep! (Before you comment and complain about my French, I know the past tense isn’t as indicated here. Okay?)

4 comments:

  1. What letter will be the one where you tell us how to get someone else to effile our green beans? I guess I have too many memories of doing it on the farm as a kid. Seemed like bushels of them. May I also use the fancy term when I pull the string off celery? Might make me like doing it better.

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    1. LOL, Sandy! I do believe you can effile celery--it qualifies with a fibrous string needing pulling! But, no, you won't like it any better!

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  2. I'm going to ask my nephew to emince something for me. He's into food prep and will like learning new words.

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    1. I think he'll be impressed you know some of these foodie words! Have fun this month with some coming up! I appreciate you coming by and taking time to leave a comment.

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