I yam what I yam.
The thing with “turnips” is Americans (and maybe other people) are calling two separate vegetables by one name. The white ones are turnips while the yellow ones are actually rutabagas, which are also called neeps or swedes in some contries.
Saying “slaw” rather than “coleslaw” is just lazy; it’s not necessarily pretentious, IMO.
We say ‘antibeetrootite’ now.
Remember the Beach Boys put “beetroot” into pop culture briefly back in 1963:
“Beetroot to your school…”
I graduated high-school with a Bob Moran. We used to sing, “Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob Moran” to him.
/Beach Boys Bonanza
I always just assumed “beetroot” was one of those charming Britishisms, like going on “holiday” or having a meal called “tea.”
Sometimes I suspect they do it just to fuck with us.
“Let’s all start saying ‘brilliant’ all the time and see if the Yanks start copying us!”
When money became monies.
Just for the record, the leaves of all three noted roots (turnip, carrot, and sweet potato) are edible.
Nope, but there again, nor do I say codfish or tuna fish, which seem to be common terms in the USA.
I think that’s actually sweet potatotuber.
Goodonya Cobber.
I wouldn’t use “codfish” for anything, and “tuna fish” is only if it comes from a can. A “tuna fish sandwich” (to me) implies canned tuna mixed with mayonnaise and maybe some vegetables, whereas a “tuna sandwich” damned well better be a filet.
“Slaw” is never wrong, just as “soup” or “bread” is not wrong, just because the variety is unspecified.
Watching Masterchef Australia almost had me convinced that beetroot must be a different (better) vegetable than the American beet. No culture could possibly want to eat that much of the stuff.
I dunno…if it’s a carrot slaw or jicama slaw or broccoli slaw you’re making, referring to it as “cole slaw” (trans: cabbage salad) just seems inaccurate.
I likewise thought beetroot was something different from just plain beets. But I guess it’s just used because it’s used in British English, and thus a bit of a prestige dialect among Americans. Hence it would be the domain of foodies, who tend to use elevated language in order to try and capture the flavor of using quality ingredients.
Real Chef: “First we taste with our eyes”
Foodie: “First we taste with our ears”
Well, I’ll give you “non-toxic.”
I dunno; my (American) family eats plenty of beets, roots and greens both.
And “beetroot” does absolutely nothing at all to distinguish between red beets and sugar beets, because the root is the primary part eaten for both of those. Never mind that nobody ever talks about sugar beets in any context where there’s room for confusion, anyway.
Probably. A lot of us don’t even realize that those two seasonings come from the same plant.