The A to Z of food snobbery

Have you seen a restaurant menu and been stumped by the alphabet soup of exotic names? Here's a guide to help you navigate the choppy waters of gastro-verbiage.

ALBA

If you haven't dug this north-west Italian town's fresh white truffles released to the world market every October (Mukesh Ambani got them hand-carried for Amitabh Bachchan's 70th), you haven't lived life. It'll set you back by 220 euros , or Rs 16,845, per 100 grams (2013 price: 350 euros, or Rs 26,800). In comparison, Umbria's black truffles are like second division royalty.

BEEFSTEAK

Vegetarians would love this one. I'm serious. Also known as coeur-de-boeuf (French for 'ox heart'), it's the generic name for the largest, luscious and ugliest-looking heirloom tomatoes that chefs are using nowadays.

CHEVRE

When feta became too commonplace (can you think of a menu without beetroot and feta salad?) to be fashionable, or maybe it had something to do with the Greek economic tumble, Chevre took its place on smart restaurant menus. Chevre is French, like feta is Greek, labneh is Israeli, and tulum is Turkish. Just different names for goat's milk cheese.

DURIAN

It's on the banned list of several airlines because of its foul smell (people have compared it with the odour of unwashed gym socks), but you've got to taste the pulpy flesh protected by its foul-smelling, thorny armour to fall in love with it. Alfred Russell Wallace, who arrived at the theory of natural selection independently of Charles Darwin, called it "a rich custard flavoured with almonds".

EGGS BENEDICT

The back-in-fashion breakfast favourite of the world (now that eggs are back to being good for your health), and no thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch, it's traditionally been two halves of an English muffin topped with ham (Black Forest or San Daniele are the current favourites), poached eggs and a generous dollop of hollandaise sauce. Substitute the ham with spinach and it becomes Eggs Florentine, or with salmon, and you can call it Eggs Hemingway.

FLORENTINE BISTECCA

Show me the beef! You'll find this prized, chunky slab of grilled beef listed as Bistecca alla Fiorentina on Italian menus. Back in Tuscany, it is cooked on a wood-fired grill, the Italians like their T-bone rare, doused with fresh lemon juice, and the steak is from the Chianina, one of the world's oldest bovine breeds.

GRATED FOIE GRAS

Tired of seared foie gras? You can now have it grated, like parmesan, on your salad. The foie gras is first cleaned, kept for two or three hours with sea salt, and then in an oven so that its fat melts away, dehydrated, and finally grated in liquid nitrogen so that the shavings freeze like ice-cream powder. Sprinkle grated foie gras over a bean and wine-soaked pear salad, as they do at Sevilla, The Claridges, and rest assured you'll clean the bowl off.

HORIATIKI

This pumped-up version of the old-fashioned Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and onions was invented by 'wannabe restaurateurs' who, according to food blogger Pam Kavanos, wanted to charge tourists who had started thronging the country's fabled islands from the 1960s-70s, more than the government-approved rate for the dish. They added Kalamata olives, fragrant Greek oregano, extra virgin olive oil and feta cheese to give the rustic salad a modern edge.

INSALATA CAPRESE

It means the "salad of Capri" and it's as refreshing as the place it is named after. Simple to assemble, it consists of sliced tomatoes, sliced fresh mozzarella and basil (recreating the red, white and green of the Italian flag), seasoned with salt and olive oil. Italians serve it as an antipasto (starter), not a contorno (side dish), unlike most other salads.

JAMON IBERICO

The cured ham of the plump, dark and short-haired Spanish Iberico pigs is treasured for its veins of fat and the sweetness of its meat, which comes from the acorns (bellota) that the animals feed on (up to 10 kilos a day) during the autumn and winter in mountain pastures studded with oak trees. The pigs, as a result, double their body weight in three or four months, and are ready for sacrifice. The ham is cured in natural air for two years; the process is longer for the acorn-fed jamon iberico de bellota.

KIBBUTZ DAN

The world may be running after the shrinking supplies of Russian caviar (or its competition from Iran, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan), but the sturgeon roe that's most desirable, according to top chefs on Manhattan's Upper East Side, comes from a 75-yer-old socialist commune (kibbutz) on the Dan river, the source of River Jordan, in Israel. At Daniel, the Michelin three-star restaurant in New York City whose chef-owner Daniel Boulud is its biggest votary, Karat Caviar is priced at $470 per 50 grams. With such influential backing, it is not surprising that the company producing the caviar now plans to step up its output from 3,000 to 8,000 kilos.

LANGOUSTINES

The world was simpler when there used to be just lobsters and prawns, but langoustines, also known as the Norway lobsters or Dublin Bay prawns, are now prized for their succulent white flesh. Hailed as Europe's most important commercial crustacean, the langoustine has also made inroads into Indian restaurant menus. Don't let the name confuse you.

MICRO GREENS

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines these new chef favourites as "a marketing term used to describe tiny, tender, edible greens that germinate in soil or a soil substitute from the seeds of vegetables and herbs". These are smaller than 'baby greens', and harvested later than 'sprouts', within seven to 15 days of the seeds being sown. A fad in the 1980s in San Francisco, micro greens are now popular in restaurants the world over because they provide a variety of leaf flavours.

NIGIRI

This was the sushi before maki rolls, and their American variants packed with cheese and avocado and what not, bulldozed the classicists out of business. Nigirizushi has two components, hand-pressed vinegar rice roll with a sliver of raw fish (tuna or salmon being the favourites) sitting atop a micro layer of wasabi. Tradition demands that you use your fingers to dip it into soy sauce, minus wasabi, and eat it in one piece.

OSSOBUCO

When Milan descends from the fashion ramp, it gorges on this hearty farm-hand dish of cross-cut veal shanks braised with vegetables, white wine and broth. Traditionally, it is garnished with gremolata (a condiment made with chopped lemon zest, garlic and parsley) and served with the saffron-infused risotto alla milanese, but the modern and more popular recipe includes tomatoes, carrots, celery and onions.

PIEROGI

What dim sum are to the Cantonese, pierogi, the trending bar staple, are to Poland (in the same way as pelmeni is to Russia). With fillings extending from mashed potatoes and sour cream or sauerkraut to minced meat or even berries, these dumplings are steamed and then baked or gently fried in butter with onions. Pierogi ruskie (not Russian, but Ruthenian dumplings) are most popular in North America.

QUINOA

Revered by the Incas as the "mother of all grains", and suppressed by the Spanish conquistadors, this "pseudo cereal" with a rollercoaster history now enjoys the elevated status of a "superfood". Grown mainly in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, although other countries, including India, are joining the ranks of producers, protein-packed quinoa has seen its global prices triple between 2006 and 2013.

RACLETTE

There's a pronounced nip in the air, so let's get ready to see a busy raclette counter at the next wedding we attend. Originally from the Swiss town of Valais, this winter favourite is molten cheese scraped out on to a plate filled with accompaniments such as small firm potatoes, gherkins, pickled onions and dried meats.

SOUS VIDE

This flavour-of-the-season restaurant menu term refers to a method of cooking food sealed in air-tight plastic bags in a water bath at an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking, typically around 55 degree C to 60 degree C for meats and higher for vegetables. Pioneered at the celebrated French restaurant, Troisgros, and practised by just about every international celebrity chef, it ensures that meats and vegetables are evenly cooked inside, and are able to retain their juices, without overcooking.

TAMARI

In a world turning its back on both sodium and gluten (for good health reasons), tamari is becoming the popular (and tasteful) soy sauce replacement. It is produced only in Japan and is a by-product of miso (fermented soy seasoning), low on salt (hence sodium) and gluten free (because wheat has no place in its production process, unlike in the case of regular soy sauce). Ask your nearest Japanese store to stock it.

UMAMI

What's common to parmesan cheese, tomato ketchup and soy sauce? It's "the fifth taste", or umami ("deliciousness"), which the Japanese professor, Kikunae Ikeda, first brought to the world's notice in 1908. Adam Fleischman's five-year-old Umami Burger chain in America has taken this idea to a new level by adding Umami Sauce, which contains soy sauce, and an Umami Dust of ground-up dried porcini mushrooms and dried fish heads to season the beef patties.

VELOUTE

Veloute is French for 'velvet' and I can't think of any other word to describe the texture of this 'mother sauce', created by the father of French cookery, Marie-Antoine Careme, and refined by the legendary Auguste Escoffier. It is made by sauteing equal parts by mass of butter and flour to form the roux, a light chicken or fish stock, and salt and pepper for seasoning. In Normandy, it is fish stock that's used with cream, butter and egg yolk. The Venetians add shallots, tarragon and chervil (which is related to parsley), and the Hungarians, onions, paprika and white wine.

WEINER SCHNITZEL

Don't snigger at the name in front of Austrians because they may see it as a national affront. Austria's national dish is a thin piece of boneless, butterfly-cut veal, rolled in flour, whipped eggs and bread crumbs, and deep fried, being repeatedly tossed in the pan. It's served traditionally with kopfsalat (lettuce tossed with a sweetened vinaigrette dressing, optionally with chopped chives or onions), potato or cucumber salad.

XO SAUCE

XO comes from the cognac abbreviation for 'extra old', but this sauce has nothing to do with the drink. Invented at The Peninsula Hong Kong's Spring Moon restaurant in the 1980s to add zest to bland Cantonese dishes, it is made with roughly chopped dried scallop and shrimp, air-cured Jinhua ham, chilli peppers, garlic and canola oil.

YUZU

It's a citrus fruit that's hardly ever eaten, but whose aromatic tart juice is used to make the tangy ponzu sauce, which is widely used as a dressing for tataki (lightly grilled, then chopped meat or fish), and also as a dip for sashimi or one-pot nabemono dishes such as shabu-shabu.

ZUCCHINI BLOSSOMS

If you wish to prettify a salad, or have them batter-fried with a soft cheese stuffing, these edible flowers, which have gained a worldwide fan following, add a different texture and flavour to your eating experience. My idea of bliss? Having the blossoms raw with a burrata cheese and black olive tapenade filling. Truly delicious.

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