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Re: We speak the same language??

>Stacey, you have raised the ghosts of recent correspondence (see
>bottling v canning in the archives) just when I thought it was all
>finished with. I certainly could collect a lot of differences between
>usage of certain words in Britain and the States,even in veggies alone
>but I don't suppose it would do any good. For instance our broad beans
>you call fava beans, a term so unrecognised over here that I had to look
>it up, I had never heard of it before. As to courgettes, that came from
>the French use of immature marrows in cooking (courge=little pumpkin),
>the word Zucchini is Italian and is applied to one variety only, perhaps
>the most popular one with gardeners. But with all the cucurbits the
>dividing lines are very blurred. Even in UK until we moved across the
>country we had never heard runner beans described as kidney beans, a
>term which is elsewhere reserved exclusively for french beans, or what
>you call green beans! We grow a bean called Romano, from Thompson &
>Morgan which has the flavour of a runner bean , indeed that was how it
>was described at first, then with no explanation the next year it came
>labelled as a french bean which it seems to be by habit. As to that
>eggplant, that name is best reserved for one type of aubergine which has
>all the appearance of a white egg and needs more heat than I can give it
>rather than the large purple fruits one sees in our shops and is happy
>at lower temperatures.
>
>My conclusion about the whole affair is when using these names be very
>careful about understanding what the other person really means. I doubt
>if it is possible to do a glossary which is 100% reliable. If the
>botanic names apply, use these because at least these are standardised
>at international level.
>-- 
>Allan Day  Hereford HR2 7AU allan@crwys.demon.co.uk
>
And what we call corn, you call maize, I believe,  In England I think all
grains are known as corn, aren't they?  We don't have to go that far afield
for language differences.  In Canada, for instance, a chesterfield is a
sofa, although it's just a cigarette in the U.S.  In the Northeastern U.S.
they eat cottage fries.  In the West, they're unknown.  We either have
fried potatoes or preferably hash browns that are unheard of in the East.
Anyone want a milk nickel?  Margaret
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