[Sca-cooks] Numbers, pates, and spreads...

[Sandra Kisner]

>>Actually, Stefan, as Margali said, pate's (that's an
accent over the "e", not an apostrophe) are pastes.
Don't know the formal definition- you'd hafta ask a
formally trained chef for that, I think- but my
experience has been that pate's always include a
finely chopped or ground cooked animal product (not
including milk or eggs, though either might wind up in
a pate'), whereas a spread might be anything that will
smear conveniently over a piece of bread or crackers
without destroying them. That's why we have "cheese
food spreads" or "sandwich spreads " (usually
mayonaise- type stuff) or even the ever-popular
margarines, trying for piss-elegance as bread spreads,
rather than imitation butter. "Shedd's Spread" is an
example of the latter.<<

     I was under the impression the margarine "spreads" are so called because of an increased water content.  I don't think they can legally call themselves margarine.  But they can (and do) advertise they have fewer calories and/or less fat, which is the case because their place has been taken by water!

Sandra Kisner
sjk3 at cornell.edu