I’ve googled around and tried to find a definition for this, but haven’t been successful. And surprisingly, Wikipedia is down and appears to have been since some time last night.
I’ve seen references to a “table d’hote” in fiction, from about 1910 to at least as far as 1927, and it’s some sort of meal that you went out and ate, but what was it exactly? In one novel that I read, a New York couple is struggling financially, and the wife says she’s too tired to cook something and asks if they couldn’t get a table d’hote. In another novel from 1927 a character is having a table d’hote at his hotel.
Wikipedia’s working fine for me. Apparently it’s the same thing as prix fixe. IOW, a limited multi-course menu where each option for each course costs the same.
Your link works for me to, but the old www.wikipedia.org link doesn’t, at least for me.
It’s been my experience that prix fixe service is generally on the expensive side, and a higher quality of ingredients and cuisine is expected. Was that always the case, or did prix-fixe arrangements used to be common in cheaper eating places?
I’ve seen this term in current use here. *Table d’hôte * describes a fixed menu where you get little or no choice and the prices are fixed, as opposed to an *à la carte * menu, where you are given options.
Tab-luh (The first part is an “a” sound like when someone hesitates to say something “ahhhh” but the second part is kind of barely pronounced… just barely make an l sound)
The second word is a bit tougher:
the d makes a barely audible “duh” sound, the h is basically silent, and the o is said as you would name the letter - “oh”, then just finish with a “tuh” or “te” (short e), but again barely heard.
Tab-luh duh-oh-te
Literally, host’s table. You see this a lot in Montreal on restaurant menus. Nowadays it is typically a multi-course menu, usually soup and/or salad, appetizer*, main course, dessert and coffee. A restaurant may have a choice of 2 soups, or one soup and a salad, of the salad may be it’s own course. Then you’d have a choice of 4-6 appetizers, then often 6-8 main courses and 4-6 desserts to choose from. It might be all one price, or it might be a set price based on the main course, but all within a similar price range (chicken table d’hôte for 28$ but duck for 32$, for example).
*an appetizer is the entrée… the word means “entry” or “entrance” and is therefore the first “real” course to the menu. I don’t know why the rest of the continent chooses to name the main course that. It annoys me a little
Tab - luh dote. Tab is just like the English word, luh is tricky - it’s like the vowel in ‘her’ without the final ‘r’; or like the vowel in ‘cut’ but much more closed. Dote is just like the English word for ‘love to pieces’. Stronger accent on the ‘dote’ than on the ‘Tab’.
One other thing to watch out for - in English, we say Tay - bull; in French, the vowel has to be on the other side of the ‘l’ consonant. Very tricky for Anglos because it’s the same word as our ‘table’, but it doesn’t sound the same. It literally means ‘the host’s table’.
Yeah, just like Mnemosyne said…
My first (and until now only) encounter with this term is in the movie, The Sound of Music. In the song, The Lonely Goatherd, one line says, “Men in the midst of a table d’hote heard…”
