Oxford English Dictionary - additions (groan)

Okay  - I used to think the OED was a paragon of virtue, but, um, no more. This article, explaining the muffin top and other items, and lists some of their favorites (?) added to the Oxford English Dictionary. I've listed some of my "favorites," so to speak. 


Babycino. A drink of hot milk that has been frothed up with pressurized steam, intended for children. 
Eton mess. A dessert consisting of a rough mixture of whipped cream, pieces of meringue, and fruit, typically strawberries.
Flat water. Ordinary tap or bottled drinking water, as opposed to sparkling water. 
Mac1. Macaroni, as in mac and cheese.
Nom nom. Used to express pleasure at eating, or at the prospect of eating, delicious food. 
Sammich. A sandwich (I’m jonesing for a pastrami sammich.) 

Babycino - okay, sure, let's get them hooked on the idea of caffeine really really early. Jeez. Flat water? Really, how about still water. That I've heard of. Eton Mess - duh, it's hard to believe this hasn't made the OED before now. Who doesn't know what Eton Mess is?  That said, it's not that big of a deal. Why is it in the OED? Mac1 - sounds like the name of a rapper or something. What kind of tool uses this phrase? W-ever. 

Nom nom - that's what a baby says - how L.A.M.E. And Sammich, that's just insulting to anyone's intellect or gay or both. 

Here's to wishing all this was an April Fool's joke. 

Food Terminology

Last night, on the 1st episode of Next Iron Chef, the participating chefs kept tossing around the word confit. Now, I know of duck confit, but I've never heard of someone making mango confit or salmon confit. Both sort of defy the definition of the word. If you look at Barron's Food Lover's Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst, which I have owned and used since 1999 at least, you would not that confit is defined as such, "...is derived from an ancient method of preserving meat (usually goose, duck or pork) whereby it is salted and slowly cooked in its own fat. The cooked meat is then packed into a crock or pot and covered with its cooking fat, which acts as a seal and preservative."


It certainly seemed like everyone had just learned the word so they were using it as much as possible - blame it on the foodie I suppose. groan.


So are they just tossing around words to impress people who don't own a copy of the Food Lover's Companion? If (and that's a big IF) Food Network is interested in getting people to cook - which I realize these cooking contest are not designed to do - you would think they would advocate for proper use of terminology. I would have expected, at a minimum, that Alton would throw the BS flag on the chefs... disappointing.