Although these are mainly food related, there are many fashionable type words that English speaking people use everyday without knowing what they actually mean. These words might sound mighty fancy but are often not as glamorous as we may think they are.

Concierge: This one is my personal favorite, I was never sure exactly what this special service was all about and whenever I stayed at a higher end hotel with “concierge service”, I was afraid to ask for it because I didn’t know what it was. I only knew that I paid for it and it cost about twenty bucks more than the hotel’s without it. It turns out that it is just a pretentious moniker for “janitor”. From now on I think I’ll just save my twenty and stay at a hotel that has plain old housekeeping.

A La Mode: I was always under the impression that this meant ice cream on my pie, well, that was what I got whenever I ordered ‘pie a la mode’, apparently, a la mode, means “of the fashion“. So I guess all those times I should have been getting designer shoes with my dessert or a cute outfit of the ‘haute couture’ perhaps. Somehow the waitress mixed up my order with the ‘fashion plate’ at the next table.

Au Gratin: Translation, scrapings from the pan. Somehow that does not sound as yummy as “topped with breadcrumbs and cheese” which is how it is usually served. Nowadays, most restaurants aren’t even that ambitious, they sprinkle a bit of cheese on your food, call it “au gratin” and charge you more for it.

Cordon Bleu: It means, “blue string”, but when referring to chicken, it is a breast with ham and cheese in it. Which, I might add is a much better flavor than “blue string”.

Tortierre: A form of French pastry, in English it is a meat pie. It sort of sounds like it is when you eat it - torture. This is some kind of dry, ground up ’mystery meat’ (looks a lot like cat food), it definitely could use some au gratin or cordon bleu or something.

I do not place any blame on the French for inventing these words, rather, I would say that these are very clever marketing schemes, probably started by an English speaking billionaire, that are aimed at pretentious folks that have way too much money. The whole thing of it is, now even the not so well off, down to earth people pay more for food and services with fancy names.

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