On Fri, 28 Feb 2014 08:51:17 -0800 (PST), A Moose in Love
> wrote:

> The other day, I posted a super simple recipe for steak sauce. 'Home Made'.
> However, I used bottled wurster sauce, bottled ketchup and cider vinegar.
> Is it truly home made? If it were truly home made then I would make
> the worcestershire sauce myself, as well as the ketchup, all made from
> garden ingredients. Also I put in some hot sauce(an ingredient which I
> omitted when I posted the recipe)which is also bottled.
> If I add mustard, should I make mustard from mustard seed which I purchased?
> etc.
> Where do you draw the line?

If it's an abstraction, who cares where the abstract borders lie?

I figure if I should or want to take credit for a dish, a sauce, or
some such, I'll call it home made. If I sprinkle or pour something over
a purchased pot-pie, or canned/frozen food, I wouldn't call that home
made. If I made a pie in a store-bought shell, I'd call it home made,
no matter what the hell was in it.

If I made a made a packaged dinner, like a pilaf mix or falafel I
wouldn't call it home made, but I would call it home *cooking*.
Actually I don't think I really use the phrase "home made" it seems to
have lost its meaning unless it's like a quenelle or something. Or
perhaps to distinguish it from the obvious alternative: "home made"
yogurt, or "home made fried chicken.

Actually I think finely mincing such terms is kind of a semantic game,
rather than a cooking thing. Doesn't everybody?