Andrew Price wrote:
> On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 16:03:06 -0400, "Bob (this one)" >
> wrote:
>
> [---]
>
>> "Carpaccio was invented by Giuseppe Cipriani
>
> I thought it might be interesting to see what the Italians themselves
> have to say about this, so I looked it up in the Zingarelli, a
> standard reference dictionary in Italy, such as is Websters in the
> U.S., or the OED in other English-speaking countries. Thus far, they
> agree with you, but
>
>> in 1950
>
> "carpaccio
> [denominato cos� da G. Cipriani intorno al 1960, perch� il piatto fu
> inventato in occasione della mostra del pittore V. Carpaccio
> (1465-1526) a Venezia]"
>
> they date it ten years later

13 years for this guy, and he makes a joke: " Il carpaccio:
deriva dal nome del pittore, Carpaccio per l'appunto, che
nel 1963 tenne una mostra al Palazzo Ducale (Venezia). Tale
piatto venne infatti servito per quell'evento. (Non è il
pittore che prende il nome dalla carne, Wink ). "
<http://tinyurl.com/re4fn>

>> at
>> Harry's Bar in Venice, Italy. It was named for the
>> Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio who was noted for his
>> use of red in his paintings. Thin sliced raw beef served
>> with a cold vinaigrette made with olive oil, or just olive
>> oil and lemon juice (and sometimes Parmesan cheese).
>
> Zingarelli agrees with that, too:
>
> "Vivanda consistente in carne, gener. filetto, affettata molto
> sottile, condita con olio e formaggio parmigiano in scaglie e
> consumata cruda"
>
> but then goes on to add that by extension
>
> "(est.) Preparazione simile a base di pesce: carpaccio di salmone
> crudo; carpaccio di pesce spada."
>
> the term also includes fish-based preparations. My version of the
> Zingarelli dates from 1996, so it does not appear unreasonable that by
> normal evolution of language, the term now also be extended to
> vegetable-based dishes.

"Normal evolution of language" has no direct currency and is
unpredictable. Languages evolve and transmute words
willy-nilly (which, at one point used to be "will he, nill
he" and went through "normal evolution"). They also corrupt,
curtail, enlarge and add stuff to existing meanings. English
is absolutely best at this, pillaging other languages and
making new words faster than the old ones can die.

I maintain that expanding the meaning of carpaccio this way
is exactly typical of chefs trying to sound cool and neat-o
and cutting edge, by using words that carry a social cachet
rather than actually describing the dish. It's more like a
"normal" dumbing down of language to misuse it this way,
subtracting meaning rather than enlarging it.

I saw a menu that described passionfruit run through a
processor as a"confit" and a little later as a "coulis" -
both technical terms shattered into fragments of
meaningless. Apparently "puree" wasn't sexy enough despite
the fact that it was correct. It's pure pretension and
inflation. People "swellifying" their language. I saw
"roulade" used to describe a piece of fish surrounded by
rice and wrapped in seaweed - "roulade of wild-caught tuna
and California rice." There is only wild-caught tuna. I saw
"Popiette" to name a stack of slices of chicken breast with
cheese between - makes no sense at all. My absolute favorite
was a "muffin of hand-chopped chicken with assorted root
vegetables" that included peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower and
grapes among some roots - carrots, onions and yuca. The
"muffin" was essentially a slice of meatloaf.

Because ignoramuses do it is no reason for me or anyone else
to dignify it by according it any respect. There are
restaurants I've been in whose menus are opaque. So much
trendy jargon and pompous self-aggrandizement as to make it
necessary to plague the server to get even the smallest
notion of what the hell the kitchen is doing. My sense is
that most of this is to show the customer how much smarter
the chef is than they are.

Not interested. I understand romancing the menu a bit, but
maybe do it with adjectives and leave the nouns alone.

Here's romance marking the end of summer from the beginning
of an article I wrote...

It's time for the dizzying flower perfumes of summer to
give way to the crisp, gold scents of autumn. And for small
fruit-sweet tastes to give way to full stews and herby roasts.
There's no other time to smell the grasping earthiness of a
pumpkin patch, of an apple press at work, of late season
tomatoes stewing for a Sunday dinner with the first steamy
kitchen windows of this new season.
It's fall and it's time to cook differently and eat with a
seriousness that summer just can't match. Oh, sure, there
are the technical seasons, measured with laser scientific
precision more precise than the dance of angels on pinheads.
We're not talking calendars here; we're talking the color
of the afternoon sunlight, that mysterious blueness that
tells the pear trees to don their autumnal finery and,
finally, to rest. We're talking of the first hints of some
yet unborn far-off snowfall somehow to be smelled at the
edge of a sniff of some clear October morning.
For the months just past, we gave heat away, seeking a
cooling breath. Now we look to find that last ray of
warming sun, pulling it to us as we know it will be yet half
a year before we can again relax and sun ourselves in some
feline pleasure. We start the search for warmth in the
kitchen with hearty soups, stews and that whole family of
one-pot meals. Good chunky hunks of meat and vegetables in
a broth so rich you wonder why it's been so long since you
had some, Summer forgotten.

Not one "carpaccio" in the bunch...

Pastorio