I’m helping a friend translate her Vietnamese menu into English. According to my dictionary, one word translates as “pig’s omental fat” or “net fat”, neither of which is familiar to me. The American Heritage dictionary say omental means, “One of the folds of the peritoneum that connect the stomach with other abdominal organs.”
Anyway, right now we’ve got the entree, “Beef with pig’s omental fat”, which I’m guessing is not going to be popular with the tourists, or even comprehensible to them. English is full of food euphemisms for “foods” that would sound scary otherwise, e.g., juice (blood), giblets (guts), tripe (stomach lining), sweetbreads (something I don’t even want to remember), hot dogs (animal lips). Is there a comforting euphemism we can use here?
Likely you are looking for “caul fat” which is a lacy network of fat found on sheeps and pigs stomachs, and used to keep large cuts of meat well lubricated while cooking.
However, fat overall is getting good play these days due to Atkins and the cooking-show-fueled realization that fat adds lots of flavor.
Some high-end Italian restaurants in particular have been doing okay selling “lardo,” which is basically, well, lard, served almost as a super-rich cold cut.
“Beef a la lardo?” I’d eat it. “Beef cooked with savory pork essence?” No more exaggerated or awkward than many an oriental restaurant menu entry.