Years ago, I learned to make something called a “rustic pie.” It had a tiny moment, but didn’t really catch on and the family thought it was weird when I brought a delicious one to a party. Leap ahead 25 years and it’s now called a “galette”. Sounds fancier, cooks are all over it and local stores and bakeries are producing it. My family has suggested that I make one for them. Err… I already did.
What other items, especially food recipes suddenly gained traction due to a name change?
Sausages —> brats, maybe
Butt roast —> shoulder roast
Brains - - -sweetbreads
flank steak - - -> London broil or Bavette steak
Sweetbreads aren’t brains. They’re the thymus gland.
Carry on.
Brats are a specific type of sausage. Plenty of sausages still out there.
Rapeseed
“The land of Rape and Honey”
Oopsie.
How about offal- - ->tripe
menstrual pads—>sanitary napkins
Tripe is just a particular type of offal - which includes liver, oxtail, tongue, gizzard, etc
Or carrion, if you will.
So many kinds of sausage out there. Even in the land of brats (Sheboygan) there’s other types of fresh sausage and smoked sausage. I love me many varieties of sausage.
But you made me think of another one. Blood sausage and blood pudding are often marketed as “black” instead of “blood”.
Patagonian Toothfish became Chilean Sea Bass. Long ago the name Dolfin was dropped from menus in favor of Mahi Mahi to prevent confusion.
Not a lot of people ordering slimehead for dinner until the name was changed to orange roughy.
A New Mexico friend was cursing all the wild rocket around his property. I asked him if he knew that rocket was also known as arugula in culinary circles. A bit of a foodie, he decided to start weeding by pulling instead of using herbicide so that he could dare taste it after a couple of seasons.
“Rustic Pie” had bad PR. It’s always been called a galette in France or a crostata in Italy. “Rustic Pie” doesn’t exactly sound appetizing as there’s not much there in the way of description, but galette and crostata have that continental flair to their names.
I am aware. That is why I started this thread. It’s all in the marketing.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that marketing has nothing to do with it - but I also find it kind of difficult to consider galette and crostata marketing names when they aren’t really new names - they’re names that are new to you, but they’ve always been called by those names in not only in France and Italy, but most likely in French and definitely Italian bakeries in the US.
Even though I knew what a crostata is long before this thread , I had never heard of a rustic pie and thought you were referring to either this or
this..
Chinese gooseberry -> kiwi fruit
Rapeseed oil --> canola oil
Ugli fruit -> unique fruit
doreen, I’m not here to pick bones but the same dish was marketed to the US-English speaking audience as rustic pie 25 years ago or so. It fell flat. But they applied a different name (I never claimed they invented it) and it took off.
RealityChuck, great examples!