eatchicago wrote:I tend to accept the term "homemade from a restaurant if the item in question is usually not made by restaurants themselves. Things like ice cream and corned beef immediately come to mind. If a restaurant or ice cream parlor is making their own ice cream, I'm perfectly happy if they call it "homemade".

I'll buy that. The phrase "house made" that keeps showing up on menus sounds silly, and makes me either think of one of the Muppet Show's puppet houses stirring a pot, or Hugh Laurie spitting in it.

LAZ wrote:So, if Joe's Diner is serving "Mama's homemade apple pie," it should be made by his mother in her home kitchen (which, one hopes, is certified for commercial cookery). If Joe means -- as he typically does -- that the pie is made according to his mom's recipe by his pastry cook in the diner kitchen, then the designation ought to be "house-made." And that term doesn't apply if what the cook does is spoon canned filling into frozen pie crust and bake it.

Not to get all semantical on you, but what if Mama lives in the back of the restaurant (and so the whole place is really, you know, Mama's House), and cooks it there? Does that make it homemade?

And you're saying it would not be homemade if, for instance, she lived next door, walked over to the kitchen (a place she did not live) and made it, outside the home.

I can't agree with the implicit and explicit logic of that position, but I do agree that spooning filling out of a can, even if you do it in the comfort of your own home, renders the the pie with the filling something other than "homemade."

Respectfully,

Hammond

Hi,

A few years ago, I found a small-batch producer of corn relish who tried to evoke homemade by stating it was ho-made. We certainly know in slang what a 'Ho' is meant by, though hardly a compliment. While I guess they thought they could evoke homemade by ho-made since we English speakers have been known to slur pronounciations where homemade might just sound like ho-made. Still it is far more reasonable to state homemade taste on a label instead of ho-made taste.

Still my family remembers this poorly thought out label and will declare special appreciation for my ho-made cooking!

Regards,

David Hammond wrote:Not to get all semantical on you, but what if Mama lives in the back of the restaurant (and so the whole place is really, you know, Mama's House), and cooks it there? Does that make it homemade?

And you're saying it would not be homemade if, for instance, she lived next door, walked over to the kitchen (a place she did not live) and made it, outside the home.

What is this, if not a discussion of semantics? To me, "homemade" has a literal meaning that doesn't apply to commercial cookery. A meal made at a restaurant can be "home-style," but it is never "home cooking."

LAZ wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Not to get all semantical on you, but what if Mama lives in the back of the restaurant (and so the whole place is really, you know, Mama's House), and cooks it there? Does that make it homemade?

And you're saying it would not be homemade if, for instance, she lived next door, walked over to the kitchen (a place she did not live) and made it, outside the home.

What is this, if not a discussion of semantics? To me, "homemade" has a literal meaning that doesn't apply to commercial cookery. A meal made at a restaurant can be "home-style," but it is never "home cooking."

I think your definition may be overly literal. There are lies and outright deceptions, and then there are phrases that have made their way into common usage and don't usually mislead. I think EC's interpretation of "home-made" is probably the generally accepted one: made "in the house," but not in anyone's domicile.

Hammond

David Hammond wrote:and then there are phrases that have made their way into common usage and don't usually mislead.
Hammond

It's a slippery slope isn't it? What once was surimi (formed fish) has now led to this thread.

sazerac wrote:It's a slippery slope isn't it? What once was surimi (formed fish) has now led to this thread.

Indeed.

I think homemade has come to take on a meaning that everyone understands quite clearly as NOT meaning homemade, literally.

But for that matter, literally has taken on the meaning of its opposite (figuratively) too ("I must have literally jumped ten feet from my chair when I tasted the diner's homemade pie").

I tend to accept the term "homemade from a restaurant if the item in question is usually not made by restaurants themselves. Things like ice cream and corned beef immediately come to mind. If a restaurant or ice cream parlor is making their own ice cream, I'm perfectly happy if they call it "homemade".

I thought it had been agreed upon long ago (perhaps as handed down on tablets by Moses, er, Calvin Trillin) that one never dined in any place that included the words "Mom" or "homemade" on its signage. How could you entrust your tastebuds to anyone who so casually and blatantly misrepresents from the git go? I suppose it is roughly akin to engaging in casual sex with someone you just met who seems acceptably attractive but is clearly lying to you about everything. Okay, it has its place, but I outgrew that years ago, too. I mean there is an intimacy to having someone prepare and serve food for me, I am accepting it into my body, and I prefer not to have the entire transaction built on a foundation of lies.

I suppose I understand the argument that if a lie becomes common parlance, one cannot hold the liar accountable for it, but I do not accept it. Just because everyone knows that homemade does not actually mean made at home, does not make it less of a lie. Hell, if that was the case, I would have to accept and forgive everything politicians say (note to mods: this is a political reference, yes, but non-partisan, so I hope it flies, but if not, kill it, kill me, Hammy has me all het up, hang me up and cure me for a ham already), and I sure am not ready to do that.

With regards to injecting meat with noxious fluids - I am certain that most Americans now believe that meat is naturally flavorless and soggy with a saline tang. Usually to be complemented with a sauce adding more salt, some sugar, and the touch of processed tomato. Ahh, delectable flavors!

At some point I just find the whole thing insulting, so I try not to read menus too closely any more, just scan for the broad strokes, menus being mendacious documents in any case.

Perhaps we should go the opposite way here, and search for the most honest and straightforward menu, something Thomas Paine would respect, and I quote:

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Sadly.

I thought it had been agreed upon long ago (perhaps as handed down on tablets by Moses, er, Calvin Trillin) that one never dined in any place that included the words "Mom" or "homemade" on its signage.

"Never play cards with a man named Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own."--Nelson Algren (1901-1981), Newsweek, July 2, 1956

dicksond wrote:...Perhaps we should go the opposite way here, and search for the most honest and straightforward menu...

I have a picture in my mind now of a nuveau-Greek place called Diogenes. Truthful menu left as an exercise for the reader: Surimi pastitsio, with restaurant-fresh phyllo, for instance.

I have a picture in my mind now of a nuveau-Greek place called Diogenes. Truthful menu left as an exercise for the reader: Surimi pastitsio, with restaurant-fresh phyllo, for instance.

I like it, and having considered a Diogenes reference in my post but concluded I had already gone on too long, appreciate you completing the thought, Joel. Of course, I said the most truthful menu, not a downright suicidal one.

Just to improve a touch, though, it would not read "restaurant-fresh," but "Sysco's mid-grade phyllo, produce in their friendly plant in Worth."

jbw, thank you for the correction on the Algren, not Trillin, reference - I hope I was at least half-right and it was Trillin who directed against homemade, and perhaps even quoted Algren on Mom's. Okay, I am stretching.

Okay, so untangle this for me.

Sunday, I'm serving duck soup. I bought the duck from a store, smoked it at home, will season it at home and place it in store-bought wonton skins and cook in duck stock I made at home.

Will this soup be homemade or store-bought?

David "The Riddler" Hammond

David Hammond wrote:Okay, so untangle this for me.

Sunday, I'm serving duck soup. I bought the duck from a store, smoked it at home, will season it at home and place it in store-bought wonton skins and cook in duck stock I made at home.

Will this soup be homemade or store-bought?

You don't make your own wonton skins?! Sheesh! This soup is obviously store-bought, but I will have to try some to be sure.

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
--Carl Sagan

Best,
Michael

David Hammond wrote:Will this soup be homemade or store-bought?

Depends who you plan on selling it to

David Hammond wrote:Will this soup be homemade or store-bought?

"Speed scratch"!

LAZ,

I'll tell you, some of these "scratch" suggestions have the ring of the Eisenhower Administration about them (e.g., "Enhance melon salads with mandarin oranges and shredded coconut).

Hammond

I somehow missed this thread until now, but I just wanted to note that I love it. It has everything I like: food, philosophy, semantics, politics, literary references, and wit. I'd just like to add a few thoughts: the best misuse of "literally" that I've ever heard came from, I believe, Marv Albert (otherwise a fairly erudite guy) in reference to our own beloved basketball icon: "Michael Jordan has literally exploded on the court!" That image was too disturbing to contemplate for long. Also, I'd like to brag a bit, in a semi-related fashion. My father, a labor organizer, was once bailed out of jail by his pal, Nelson Algren. Algren to my dad home to his (Algren's) mother's house, where they ate what my father long described as the best meal he'd ever had (though spending three days in a Chicago jail will make you really appreciate all good things) -- chicken soup. It was homemade.

David Hammond wrote:I'll tell you, some of these "scratch" suggestions have the ring of the Eisenhower Administration about them

You did notice the sponsor of the site?

Canned Food: The Easy Way to Eat Right

Not that I meant to be ironic or anything.

From Somewhere... wrote:Canned Food: The Easy Way to Eat Right

In June, I went to a lecture by Bruce Kraig on Changes in Food Consumption Patterns After War. This lecture highlighted consequences of the Civil War, WWI and Vietnam Wars because the sponsoring museums covered these eras.

I collect cookbooks which leads me to quite a few used book sections. I have seen over the years cookbooks featuring meals assembled from canned foods. I would roll my eyes and scan the next book title without giving these books a look through.

While WW2 had Rosie the Riveter, the war effort of WWI also drove women into the military industrial workplace to support the troops. To support these women's ability to leave the household, the government actively promoted meals in minutes via canned foods. Those overlooked cookbooks were very likely financed by the government.

Regards,

Perhaps I'm making assumptions about what people know and what they don't. "Speed scratch" is a term invented by the food industry to make people feel that when they stir a can of something together with a box of something else, and maybe add some pre-chopped fresh vegetables out of a bag or pre-marinated meat from the supermarket that they're actually "cooking."

I don't have a problem with this form of assembly for quick meals, especially when it comes to fresh foods that you buy already chopped or whatever. You could look at it as turning the supermarket into your sous chef. And I use plenty of canned foods, including tuna, tomatoes, beans, peaches, even potatoes.

But -- not to get semantic or anything -- it's not cooking from scratch.

Although obviously the "speed scratch" stuff is no better than the NASA-like "homemade" pizza I used to have as a kid where you opened a box containing dough (a powder that you mixed with water), tomato sauce (a can), and cheese (a little packet)-- and probably an envelope of Bac-Os-like imitation pepperoni, too, while we're at it-- the fact remains that making recipes with some packaged short cuts is not, in itself, abhorrent. As Exhibit A I point to my Bhel Puri recipe, which uses a number of canned and premixed and seasoned things, yet also uses fresh stuff where it counts-- tomatoes, cilantro, onion-- and is, overall, extremely fresh tasting, not to mention homemade tasting.

I'd point to another item I use a lot to make fresh food-- the prewashed and mixed salad greens at Costco, which I suspect are not only prepped for my convenience but sold in a plastic tub which has been pumped full of some gas to retard spoilage (since they last so much longer before the package has opened). In some sense this is a highly technological product, and yet, the net result is fresh greens on the table, no? Homemade salads, no?

My point is, nobody's a food technology virgin any more. We have to get into questions of intent, just as we do with the "homemade" desserts which aren't even house-made, since they're made off premises by a dessert maker, yet are clearly something other than the industrial desserts which are made off premises by a giant factory. Maybe the best term is our old pretentious friend "artisanal," which throws it back to us to say what's food art and what isn't, rather than allowing us to rely on some supposedly objective test of authenticity/homemadeness/whatever.

P.S. I think Eisenhower-era Newsweek bowdlerized the Algren quote; I always heard it as "...and never sleep with anyone crazier than you are." (An unattainable goal for half the human race at any time, it seems to me.)

Mike G wrote:I'd point to another item I use a lot to make fresh food-- the prewashed and mixed salad greens at Costco, which I suspect are not only prepped for my convenience but sold in a plastic tub which has been pumped full of some gas to retard spoilage (since they last so much longer before the package has opened). In some sense this is a highly technological product, and yet, the net result is fresh greens on the table, no? Homemade salads, no?

I'm also a huge fan of these sorts of salad mixes, which in our small household have a big advantage over buying all the greens separately. (When I used to do that, some invariably rotted before we could use them all.)

However, I wouldn't call the salads I make from them my creations, even when I pour vinaigrette I made myself on top of them. I did not choose the particular mixture of greens. (Yes, I would call the dressing "homemade," even though I bought the balsamic vinegar, oil, herbs and other components.) Nor is the salad in any way artisanal, even though it's fresh and tasty.

"Artisanal" seems to me a kind of highfalutin word, anyway. I would certainly use it for cheese and breads and other foods that require real craftsmanship, but food can be homemade without having artistry. "Homemade" implies but does not guarantee quality.

Mike G wrote:

P.S. I think Eisenhower-era Newsweek bowdlerized the Algren quote; I always heard it as "...and never sleep with anyone crazier than you are." (An unattainable goal for half the human race at any time, it seems to me.)

I'd beg to differ; I believe the Newsweek quote was accurate. It has Algren's cadence and he had more interest in troubled women than in crazy women, I think. Tennessee Williams would be another story.

ToniG wrote:Mike G wrote:

P.S. I think Eisenhower-era Newsweek bowdlerized the Algren quote; I always heard it as "...and never sleep with anyone crazier than you are." (An unattainable goal for half the human race at any time, it seems to me.)

I'd beg to differ; I believe the Newsweek quote was accurate. It has Algren's cadence and he had more interest in troubled women than in crazy women, I think. Tennessee Williams would be another story.

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/000138.html

David "Google is Truth" Hammond

Last night driving home from VI's down Division my husband noticed the following sign on a restaurant at Division and Pulaski. (Did not see the sign or the name of the restaurant he moved to fast)

Homestyle Food the best in town.

So, I was at Nichol's mega-stand at the Oak Park Farmer's Market this morning, and I saw a sign above a battalion of boxes full of apples: "Voted #1 at the market."

I sidled up to one of the Nichol's staff and asked, "Who voted your apples #1?"

Awkward pause...

"You will," slimed the staff person, handing me a sample slice.

At Adobe Grill tonight, my daughter called my attention to a statement on the menu: “All dishes served with our ‘homemade’ TORTILLAS.”

What caught my daughter’s attention was the word “homemade” – in quotation marks.

HMMM…

When we are served, I find in our tortilla container the thin, perfectly uniform, slightly dry and chewy tortillas with high tensile strength I associate with an industrial, rather than a homemade, version.

When our waiter arrives, I say, “But of course, these are not homemade…”

“Oh yes,” he assures me, “we have a woman who comes in, and they’re made fresh right before serving.”

I investigate, snooping around, asking the hostess, and discovering that what they have is not a woman who comes in, but a machine, in the basement, that turns out the tortillas with much the same rapidity that you’d expect from Del Rey Tortilleria or any one of the other tortilla factories in Chicago…and I suspect they were not made just before serving to us.

David Hammond wrote:When we are served, I find in our tortilla container the thin, perfectly uniform, slightly dry and chewy tortillas with high tensile strength I associate with an industrial, rather than a homemade, version.

Hammond,

While at Fonda del Mar a few weeks ago Peter D and I disagreed if the tortillas were house-made. I said no, for the very reasons you state above, he said they were made in-house.

I was (~sigh~) wrong, they were made in-house, in fact the nice tortilla lady handed me one hot off the griddle, which tasted the same as what's served.

Tortillas at Fonda del Mar


Upon reflection the "tensile strength" of FdM's tortillas is not as great as an industrial tortilla.

Enjoy,
Gary

Fonda del Mar
3749 W Fullerton
Chicago, IL 60647
773-489-3748

G Wiv wrote:
I was (~sigh~) wrong, they were made in-house, in fact the nice tortilla lady handed me one hot off the griddle, which tasted the same as what's served.

Upon reflection the "tensile strength" of FdM's tortillas is not as great as an industrial tortilla.

Enjoy,
Gary

Fonda del Mar
3749 W Fullerton
Chicago, IL 60647
773-489-3748

I thought Fonda's tortillas, the night we were there, were just fine, though perhaps lacking the primal pluck of those handpressed by the Masa Madonna. Like all fresh-made/hand-hade products, though, I'm sure they vary from night-to-night.

We had mole drenched enchiladas at Adobo, and the mass-produced, low-moisture tortillas failed to hold together: they just draped gracelessly around the chicken. Had these tortillas been baked in the sauce for just a while, rather than simply basted (I believe the warm sauce was just poured on the filled tortillas -- it was not hot enough to melt the cheese on top), these machined masa products may have actually held together better (yes, better) than hand-made varieties. Given the preparation technique, however, once again, fresh-made/hand-made were, once again, missed.

Are men not allowed to make tortillas?

Hammond