What does "entree" mean in the US?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Antonius Block, interesting find. World Wide Words is usually a reliable source, but nothing and nobody is ever the last word in the word game.

A couple of points, though.

The entry from Webster’s Unabridged at dictionary.com does back up the French usage of an earlier dish:

2. (Cookery) In French usage, a dish served at the beginning of dinner to give zest to the appetite; in English usage, a side dish, served with a joint, or between the courses, as a cutlet, scalloped oysters, etc.

The OED (first ed.) gives two quotes, shortened here to eliminate some unnecesary typing:

1850 Thackery Two little entrees of sweetbread and chicken

1880 Sir H Thompson A family dinner may… consist of soup, fish, entree, roast and sweet.

Note that this corresponds exactly to the 1895 American use that Witbrock gives.

But you can hardly use an 1895 American quote to deny that in 18th century the French did something very different. Larousse may also be too late, since he published in 1863.

What happens if we look at other French sources?

CULINARY HISTORY Origins of the names of classical dishes

JUDIC - ANNA
(1850-1911) French Actress and Prima Donna.

Dishes believed created by Escoffier.

(Entree, Consomme Sole, Noisettes, Sweetbreads, Chicken).

The French Food and Cook

You should pay a lot of attention to the choice of your Entrée…It is the first thing you serve and you will have all the attention of your guests on it. Besides this, it is much easier to be more special with an Entrée that with a Main Course. Eggs, cheese, meat or fish based, you can have millions of different ideas while staying classical…

Food Timeline-- history notes: Colonial America & 17th/18th century France

“The age of Louis XIV! The teachings of Olivier de Serres now bore fruit. Gastronomical customs and culinary recipes appeared in new forms that were very close to our own of today. Food supplies contined to increase. Market-gardens and kitchen-gardens under cultivation flourished. Vinyards produced the finest wine: people were now able to drink it without flavoring it. Good food became an art. More and more cookbooks appeared…M. de Bonnefons had an entre almost everywhere, among the great as well as those of lesser importance. He had a keen eye and his book is full of instructive information. In the chapter on arranging a formal dinner we read, for instance: “The great fashion is to place four fine soups at the four corners of the table with four dish stands between each two, with four salt cellars placed near the soup tureen. On the dish stands are placed four entrees, in low pie dishes, Guests’ plates should be deep so that they can use them for the soup or for helping themselves to whatever they wish to eat without taking it spoonful by spoonful out of the serving dish as they might be disgusted at the sight of a spoon which had been in the mouth of a person, being dipped into the serving dish without being wiped. The second course will consist of four substantial dishes set in the corners, either a court-bouillon, a pice of beef or a large roast, and salad on the plates. The third course will consist of roast poultry and game, small roasts and all the rest. The middle of the table is left free as otherwise the head steward will have difficulty in reaching across it, because of its great size. If desired, fill the centre of the table with melons, various salads in bowls or on little plates to make serving them easier, oranges and lemons. Preserves in syrup on marzipan biscuits could also be put there.”…The Sun King was a glutton. He ate without discernment, and he ate enourmously. He would think nothing of four huge plates of different kinds of soup, a whole pheasant, a partridge, vegetables, a large dish of salad, two big slices of ham, mutton with garlic, a plate of cakes and --to wind up a good meal–eggs prepared in various ways. Thanks to the Sun King, oysters regained the popularity they had lost since the days of the Romans…Families no longer ate in their bedrooms or in the halls of their dwellings. Every respectable household now boasted a dining room…The national dish was the pot-a-oie–it was to remain popular right up to the Revolution. The recipe is simple: take an enormous goose and stuff it with various meats, especially feathered game…Place a few aromatic herbs inside the poultry as well. Put it in the oven to roast. The most refined person ate only the stuffing; they left the goose for the servants…Coffee apperaed in France under Louis XIV. The king drank it for the first time in 1644…From coffee to cafes was but a step. In 1672, an Armenian at the Saint-Germain fair opened the first shop where one could sample coffee…The man made a fortune.”
—An Illustrated History of French Cuisine, Christian Guy, translated by Elisabeth Abbott [Bramhall House:New York] 1962 (p.63-66)
Middle class food

"The difference that existed, up to the end of the seventeenth century, between ordinary, everyday bourgeois cooking and aristocratic cooking was a difference in quantity and in elaborateness of presentation. Beginning in about 1750, the cuisine of ordinary days and that of special occasions were separated by a difference in kind, quality, and method. Ordinary cuisine naturally remained closer to old-style cuisine, for reasons of cost and convenience. According to Brillat-Savarin who, who had gathered his information from the inhabitants of several departments, a dinner for ten persons around the year 1740 was composed of the following:
First service…boiled meat
an entree of veal cooked in its own juice;
an hors-d’oeuvre.
—Culture and Cuisine: A Journey Through the History of Food, Jean-Francois Revel [Doubleday:Garden City NY] 1982, English translation (p. 193-4)

That page does show some variation in the use of entree, which is sometimes the second course after the soup, and sometimes used in other ways as well.

But I think these all establish that an entree was generally thought of as the early small dish at the beginning of a larger meal in France at least through the 18th century, seemingly well into the 19th century, and still used that way today:

France in Australia Embassy and Consulate-General > News and Information > About France fact sheets > About France fact sheets - index

French cooking

Traditional French meals typically include:
A regular, three course lunch beginning with an entree of mixed salad or smallgoods, a main course of meat or fish with vegetables followed by cheese served with a green salad, and a dessert or fruit.

You may think a lot of Witbrock, but I don’t think he bothered to do any real research at all. I found this in a few minutes on the Internet and I could have gone deeper except that there seemed to be no need to. He’s pretty clearly wrong on all counts.

[congodwarf]

I don’t have anything to say about the meaning of entree - as it has already been answered.
However, I can say that I wish I could find a restaurant which had a cheese and fruit desert.
Most of the restaurants I’ve been to don’t even have fresh fruit of any kind. The one exception is the wonderful Chinese place which gives fresh cut pineapple with the fortune cookies. If you really insist on a “real” desert, you can have pineapple ice cream (delicious) and even that only gets you one scoop, not the 6 scoops slathered with chocolate and other crap, which the other places sell.

Dammit! I want cheese after my dinner!!!

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@RickJay

Canada uses the American terminology as well. “Entrees” are main dishes. A smaller dish served before the entree is an “appetizer.”

I guess I’m not very fast or something, but I just figured this out in the last two weeks, during a trip to Western Canada. I really had no idea that “entree” in English Canada – or anywhere – meant a main course, and at first I obviously assumed it meant the appetizer. Of course, looking at enough menus, I figured out the usage, but it still seems horribly wrong to me.

Another think I noticed in these two weeks, if anyone cares: in [thread=390866]this thread[/thread], someone mentions “parkade” as being a Canadian term for a parking garage, and several Canadians argue on whether this is true or not. Now, at the time, I had never seen nor heard this word anywhere, so I didn’t say anything. But landing in Calgary, I start seeing “parkade” advertised at the front entrance of indoors parking garages everywhere. Aha, I say, it must be an Albertan thing. I drive to Vancouver, and see the same. Hmm, then I guess it is a general Western Canadian thing. But then, landing in Ottawa on Friday, what is the first thing I see leaving the airport? Why yes, indications for a “parkade” (or in French, “stationnement étagé”, or multi-storied parking lot).

:smack: