I assume that the French word chef literally means “boss;” as do the Spanish jéfe and the similar-sounding English synonym for “boss,” chief.
Cuisine has come to mean “fancy food” in colloquial English. But I was looking in a childrens’ French primer and saw the word cuisine on a map of a house, leading me to believe that it literally means “kitchen.” Compare that to the word for “kitchen” in other Romance languages: cocina in Spanish and cucina in Italian.
So, does that mean that Chef de Cuisine literally means “boss of the kitchen”? (I can see where the word cuisine could mean either “kitchen” or “cooking” (“cooking” here being a noun, as in “Let’s try Grandma’s cooking”).)
And haute cuisine? Doesn’t haute mean “baked,” as in Terre Haute (Baked Earth), Indiana?
Please help me sort all of this out, sil vous plait.
Yes. It does mean that. From a latin word meaning “head”.
Cuisine means “kitchen”, indeed. But it also means “cuisine” and “cooking”.
Yes. A “chef” was originally (still is, actually) the boss of the kitchens, the main cook.
“haute” never has a meaning even remotely similar to “baked”. It means “high”. “Terre Haute” would mean “High Land”. Hence, “haute cuisine” would refer to an highly skilled way of preparing food.
cuisine = there are no double cheeseburgers on the menu
haute cuisine = there are DEFINITELY no double cheeseburgers on the menu
chef de cuisine = do not ask this person for a double cheeseburger – you will not get one
chef = this person will probably give you some Salisbury steak, provided that it is Thursday
I got the whole Terre Haute = “Baked Earth” thing from an old games book; clearly my source material was inaccurate. Prior to this thread, I believed that haute meant both “baked” OR “fancy,” depending on context, as I have heard the term “haute couture” before (thank you, Carson Kressley).
So since chef means “boss,” does that mean that a French employee refers to her superior at work as mon chef (pardon my French, literally, if I’m getting these pronouns wrong)? How does a hotel manager refer to his employee who is in charge of the kitchen? If he said mon chef would the hearer believe that he (the hotel manager) was referring to his own boss, or would it be understood based on context?
What does sous chef literally mean? I know that it means “subordinate cook,” but what’s a sous? ISTR it’s some kind of worthless coin from back The Day.
Finally, what does chez mean? I’ve seen it used to denote a restaurant, as in Chez Pierre’s.
Yes. Absolutely and routinely. It can also be used in a job’s title, in this case meaning “manager” rather than “boss” : a “chef de service”, for instance, would be a department manager. The military rank above “sergent” is “sergent-chef”, and so on…
Understood based on context, but I think that most people would understand “my boss”, since “chef” is way more often used with this meaning. The hotel manager would likely say “mon cuisinier” (my cook) instead of “mon chef”. “chef” with the meaning “skilled cook” is only used in things like articles about a restaurant, etc…
“sous” means “under” . Or sub. Or deputy, when refering to a person. A “sous-directeur” would be a deputy director. The military ranks equivalent to first and second lieutnant are “lieutenant” and sous-lieutenant" . A “sous-marin” is a submarine.
“sous” can also be the plural of “sou” which indeed refers to low value coin. But though the words happen to be written in the same way, they are actually totally unrelated. This one comes from the latin “solidus” (which wasn’t at all a worthless coin, but a gold coin, if I remember correctly). The english word “soldier” is related to the french word “sou”. A soldier is someone who is paid (receive “solidii” ) to fight. The plural “sous” can also be used occasionnally to mean “money”. “Elle a pas mal de sous” = she has quite a lot of money.
Chez = 's as in at my parent ’ s = chez mes parents. Chez moi = at home.
Hence “Chez Pierre” means at Pierre’s. It’s never a mere possessive. It always refers to someone’s house or shop or business. If you’re ill, you go “chez le docteur”. It comes from the latin “in casa” = in the house.
Merci, clairobscur. Are you a native French speaker with an excellent command of English, or are you a native English speaker with an excellent command of French?
Corroborating what clairobscur said, my company recently started issuing payroll from its American corporate headquarters for a subsidiary location in Montreal. Local rules require the paychecks to be printed in French (the Canadian version), which means we spent a lot of time converting titles like “Lead Software Engineer” to equivalents like “Chef d’équipe, Dév application.” We got some rather juvenile chuckles out of all the “chefs” we suddenly had working for us.
Well, this seems like a good place to ask a related question. I am reading a book on a french restaurant (trying to get three Michelin stars) and one of the characters is the “maitre d’hotel”. Is this the same as a “maitre d’” in English, and we just shorten it? I’m just not sure since there is actually a hotel attached to the restaurant.
