AUSTRALIAN-AMERICAN CULINARY TERMINOLOGY

AMERICAN -> AUSTRALIAN

Equivalents or suitable substitutes

all purpose flour -> plain flour
aubergine -> egg plant
baking soda -> bicarbonate of soda
bell pepper -> capsicum
biscuits -> scones
broil/broiler -> grill/griller
candy/candies -> lolly/lollies
cantaloupe -> rock melon
confectioner’s sugar -> icing sugar
cookies -> biscuits
cornmeal -> polenta
cornstarch -> cornflour
courgettes -> zucchini
filberts -> hazelnuts
Graham crackers -> substitute plain wheat biscuits
granola/crunchy granola -> muesli
granulated sugar -> castor sugar
ground beef -> mince
jam or conserve -> jam (with chunks of fruit in it)
jello -> jelly
jelly -> jam (clear, no chunks of fruit in it)
jelly roll -> swiss roll
ketchup -> tomato sauce
powdered sugar -> icing sugar
raisins -> substitute sultanas if you can't get raisins
rutabaga -> turnip
scallions/green onions/shallots -> spring onions
silver beet -> spinach
sugar peas/Chinese peas -> snow peas
tomato sauce -> tomato puree
vanilla extract -> vanilla essence


* There is no equivalent for Australian golden syrup - Americans should substitute karo syrup, molasses or honey.

* There is no equivalent for Australian copha.

* American recipes do not use self-raising flour. Their recipes always use all-purpose or plain flour with a raising agent such as baking powder.

* To make self-raising flour from plain flour, mix 1 cup (8 oz, 250 g) plain or all-purpose flour with 2 level teaspoons of baking powder.

* American recipes often refer to using “sticks” of butter. 1 stick = 4 oz = 1/4 lb = ½ cup = 125 g.

* American recipes often refer to using “squares” of chocolate. 1 square = 1 oz = 30 g.

*American chilli powder is not as strong as Australian chilli powder so use less than the amount specified in American recipes.

* There is no equivalent for Australian copha.

*GASP* no chocolate crackles??


Thanks MG! Lots there I didn't know

"cornmeal --> polenta"

Ahh, thanks MotherGoose. I could never figure that one out, cornflour always used to come to mind. I'm so glad I didn't try it!

When I lived in America, there were certain things I could not get - passionfruit, crumpets and copha come to mind.

When my mum came to visit me in California, she brought me nine packets of crumpets and we ate them for days, trying desperately to eat them before they went off!

One time I decided to make pavlova and I went to the supermarket and asked for passionfruit. The clerk thought I was pulling his leg.

As for the copha - no chocolate crackles and no White Christmas either!

What is copha?

As for the rest of the list, the Australian is virtually identical to the British except for candy for us is normally sweets (which includes lollies which are sweets or ices on a stick), unless you are in the north of England (Lancashire springs to mind) where they say 'toffee' even if it isn't chewy. The other differences seem to be the fruit/vegetables, we have aubergines, cantaloupes and courgettes.

Nice to know what granola is, I often wondered.

Copha is a solid vegetable shortening. It needs to be refrigerated, where it is a solid white block. On heating, it becomes a clear liquid. Its taste is completely bland, so it is usually mixed with something disgustingly sweet. It is an essential ingredient of those fete (fair) staples, chocolate crackles, White Christmas and coconut ice.

I have never delved too closely into its origins - it is probably highly saturated and therefore very unhealthy - but it is probably derived from coconuts.

That's really informative.
What I think is interesting is that
with some of those, we use both terms, but they mean something different. For instance, polenta usually refers to the cooked item rather than the raw cornmeal, but also sometimes to the meal when it is ground finer.
The jello/jelly/jam thing is always fun. Add in conserves, preserves, and marmalade and it gets pretty confusing!
I've never called a snow pea anything but a snow pea though. And I usually call filberts hazelnuts, although I know people who say filbert. I suppose some of these depend on what part of the country you are in; some of the terminology does vary from coast to coast.

MotherGoose, is a passionfruit a different fruit there than it is here? Because here in California, at least, they're available. Just one of the more exotic fruits like starfruit and papaya, so not nearly as common as "regular" fruits. (Apples, pears,oranges, etc).

Here, granulated sugar isn't the same as castor sugar - granulated is what you'd -ut in tea or coffee, but castor/caster is what you'd use in cakes/biscuits (it's finer).

Copha sounds like what I was brought up calling dripping, yet if it is used in cooking cakes and pastries I would have thought it should be margarine. Anyone able to shed some light on the nuances of difference there? In any case I only use full fat, full salt butter for all my cooking needs - savoury or sweet, so I have never delved much into the details of what is what exactly.

Also regarding 'lollies'....for me a 'lolly' is a boiled sweet/candy on a (usually) round plastic stick something like a straw, whereas a frozen ice on a flat, wooden stick is called an 'ice pop'. The general term for all that sort of stuff, however, is certainly 'sweets' or 'sweeties'.

As for the whole scallions/onions thing - for me a spring onion and a scallion are one and the same thing, but a shallott is much stronger and usually bigger than either, and is used without the green stem. Are Australian shallots not more like a very strong but small onion, but rather like a mild scallion?

I have to agree that granulated sugar is usually coarser than caster sugar, which is usually reserved for cake making

Candy floss is another which I always find amusing. In France it's called barbe-a-papa (Father's beard), in America it's Cotton candy, and I've also heard it called spun sugar or angel's hair, which sounds cute.

What always bugs me in the US recipes is the measures - how much exactly is a cup of butter? or sugar or flour or whatever? It seems very vague to me - cups come in all shapes and sizes, and certainly couldn't be an accurate way of measuring ingredients. I prefer good old-fashioned ounces or even more modern grams.

Passionfruit is the same as maracuja. Maybe they use that name in places where they don't call it passionfruit?

"Candy floss is another which I always find amusing. In France it's called barbe-a-papa (Father's beard), in America it's Cotton candy, and I've also heard it called spun sugar or angel's hair, which sounds cute."


We call it fairy floss.

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silver beet -> spinach

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I don't think I've heard anyone call silverbeet 'spinach' since I was a kid - and I regard it as a misnomer rather than an Australianism. They're very different vegetables and both readily available - so if you call silverbeet spinach what are you going to call spinach?

Good qustion Wajo
I've always called silverbeet spinach, I didn't know there was any other untill I saw a completely different looking vegetable named English spinach in a supermarket.

Silverbeet and spinach are not the same, but at the top of the list I did state "Equivalents or suitable substitutes".

We can't get real spinach easily here in the west, so silverbeet is the next best thing.

A down and dirty lesson in American cooking measures:

3 Teaspoons (tsp) is 1 Tablespoon (tbsp). 2 Tablespoons is 1 fluid ounce (oz). There are 8 Oz in a cup. 2 cups in a pint, 2 pints in a quart (which is roughly a liter) and 4 quarts in a gallon.

Maybe my part of the country is different than others, but we have self-rising flour in the supermarkets. In fact, we have a bazillion different kinds of flour. All purpose, self-rising, whole wheat, corn, bleached, unbleached, organic, specialized for bread...

I've never called an eggplant an aubergine, I wondered if that one was backwards. (Australian to American in stead of the other way around.) Same with snow peas. They're snow peas. And courgettes. Zucchini all the way. I've never even heard the phrase "courgette", though I have heard an eggplant called aubergine. And hazelnuts are hazelnuts here, though I actually think MOST people call them filberts when they buy them as nuts, but hazelnuts when they eat them in chocolates. I call them hazelnuts either way.

If ground beef is called "mince" there, then what do you call mince? Here mince is a pie filling that involves beef, raisins, some other fruits and rich seasonings. (It can be made without the beef.)

And if Ketchup is tomato sauce, and tomato sauce is tomato puree, then what is tomato puree?

I was just looking up what a sultana was... The American website I came across said that a sultana WAS a raisin, though of the golden variety. Of course, it also said that a currant was a raisin, which it is not. Last I checked, a dried currant was a...dried currant, a relative of the gooseberry, not the grape. A raisin is a dried grape of any color. Usually we call yellow raisins "golden" but if that is what a sultana is, then so be it. I think "raisin" and "sultana" are probably interchangeable as far as a recipe is concerned. In fact, if you want to know the truth, MOST small dried fruit can be substituted for raisins in MOST recipes. Raisins, dried cranberries, dried cherries, currants... They can all basically substitute for each other in most cookie and breads-type recipies, and my mother also uses substitutions in certain meat recipies that call for raisins.

The zucchinni/courgette one is for th Brits - Australians call them zucchinnis, courgettes for the UK.

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Also regarding 'lollies'....for me a 'lolly' is a boiled sweet/candy on a (usually) round plastic stick something like a straw, whereas a frozen ice on a flat, wooden stick is called an 'ice pop'. The general term for all that sort of stuff, however, is certainly 'sweets' or 'sweeties'.

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I would all the boiled lolly on a stick a lollipop ... frozen one a ice block and everything else from the jellied to the hard boiled is just lollies.

Iv'e heard of silverbeet, always thought it was spinach but after reading this I wouldn't know a silverbeet if I fell over it. (I used to work in a fruit and veg shop )

The spring onion thing confuses me too. Spring Onions/shallotts seem interchangable sometimes and totally not in others but mostly I'd call them spring onions where you just have the leafy bit and no bulb at the bottom ... which doesn't make much sense

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If ground beef is called "mince" there, then what do you call mince? Here mince is a pie filling that involves beef, raisins, some other fruits and rich seasonings. (It can be made without the beef.)

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Personally we don't call it anything closest thing to yours we'd get would be the mince pies at Christmas that don't have any meat mince in them. I'd never heard of it before I went to England. I was working in a card/gift shop and was pricing some cards that had a mince pie recipe so I made an idiot of myself and asked ... "umm, is this right? They've got no meat in the recipie"

Aren't we all learning something today?

the confusion about copha extends

Ok, I'm doing pretty good here, keeping up just fine, except - - - What on earth is a silverbeet? What does it look like? Beets are those round red roots, spinach is a leafy green, right? Do you maybe mean what we call Swiss chard, which can substitute for spinach - it is also a leafy green, but has a bigger stalk, and is actually much more useful to grow, because it doesn't bolt.

LMAO What is swiss chard???? The plot thickens.

okay ... these are from google images

silverbeet

swiss chard

they, ummm, look pretty similar. In fact they all look like spinach. And I'd go as far to say they look like they taste as yucky as spinach too and I won't be doing a taste test.

Hmmm... the plot does indeed thicken. The images of silverbeet look much more like Swiss chard than the images of Swiss chard....

Oh, they are so good, though. Cooked just long enough to wilt, and tossed with brown rice and roasted red pepper (capiscum, right?) and a good sprinkling of Parmesan cheese on top.

Also, if what we call a rutabaga is a what you call a turnip, then what about what we call a turnip? As far as I know, turnips and rutabagas are different things.

This is interesting:

http://www.wegmans.com/kitchen/ingredients/produce/vegetables/cooking_greens.asp

http://members.optusnet.com.au/gavin_paula/patch/silverbeet.htm

I thought a rutabaga was a swede. What to you call swedes? Do you even have swedes? And are the called kohl rabi all over the world, or just here?

Don't know about other places, but we don't have swedes here in Canada. We have both turnips and rutabagas; turnips are white fleshed, and smaller, and rutabaga are the big yellow ones. Basically the same idea though, and many people don't bother to distinguish.
We have kohl rabi, but rarely find it in the stores, it's the kind of thing your grandma grows in her vegetable garden. By that name, do you mean the thing that looks like a turnip, but the bulb is above ground? With sort of spikes radiating out from it?

I agree, chard and spinach are not quite the same in taste, but are close enough to be interchangable in cooked dishes.