Now you’ve opened Pandora’s box!
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Word of the day contest?
If after making a chiffonade you cut lengthwise, is it still a chiffonade?
If you saute onions in butter before adding flour what do you have? An onion roux? A roux with onions? Something else?
If Mornay sauce and pasta makes mac & cheese, what exactly is the blue box?
Ricotta or bechamel in lasagna?
What exactly does authentic mean in the context of cuisine?
When you put pineapple and Canadian bacon on pizza what do you call what you have?
When you put beans in chili, what do you have?
If you’re bouncing around and cooking on a boat and accidentally use dish soap instead of oil for grilled cheese sandwiches what do you have? What does it mean when the crew likes it? sigh
Bechamel of course. And it’s lasagne, not lasagna
Nothing. Or almost nothing. It is generally meaningless. The exception might be if a dish had been created by a known person, who has written the recipe down. Say, Escoffier’s recipe for lasagne (if such existed). To recreate it, you might refer to it as an authentic Escoffier version. Generally, “traditional” is going to be a better word.
"Your pizza, I believe. "
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Two answers about the blue box mac and cheese. I submit that both are true:
- What kids like
- Who knows?
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Yeah, yeah. And you use extra 'u’s. Don’t you know we need to ration during a pandemic? grin
ETA: Apparently lasagne is plural for the noodles and lasagna is the dish.
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I gather the usual American spelling is as is the case in southern Italy (where they use ricotta), whereas the usual British spelling comes from the Italian north where they use bechamel. We go to a small Italian owned restaurant when we’re in Tenerife that uses “lasagna” and ricotta. I keep forgetting to ask the owner which part of Italy he’s from.
My wife’s father was born in Trieste and her late mother’s parents also lived in Northern Italy. The whole extended family loves my (English-German-Russian) ricotta lasagna. My wife’s mother’s recipes are generally sacrosanct but my lasagna is in great demand.
I think the bechamel v. ricotta debate is not North v. South in Italy. It is much more localized than that. Town to town or house to house.
What do I know? I put garlic in my spaghetti alla carbonara. grin
Are they extra or superfluous? 
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Well, they are essential where I am unless I want people to think I can’t spell properly. Which I don’t. But, generally, I’d regard them as superfluous. A word without them may not be the correct spelling as I see it, but I can still understand the meaning of the word. So, not necessary as such. It’s probably why an increasing number of folk across the world seem to be learning American English , rather than English English
On a more serious note, we had family who lived in New York state for some years. It was an awful time for my niece, then aged about 9 or 10. She had been uprooted from everything she knew, and every friend she had and dropped into this completely different environment. But, on this subject, she would regularly find her school work marked down because of “poor spelling”. After many weeks/months of this, her parents just had to have a meeting with the school’s headteacher about it. Whilst the head understood the spelling differences, it would seem that others on the teaching staff either had no knowledge or simply didnt care. We like to hope that they were not simply discriminating against a foreigner.
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Sadly, I have also noticed that many of the teachers today can’t spell themselves. I saw one spell graphic “graffick.” So maybe that was part of it?
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When I had stepdaughters I was so frustrated by teacher’s notes home that I started grading and sending them back with copies to the principal, PTA, and school board. The PTA asked me to run for school board but I got divorced instead.
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I assume that goes down as a “win/win”?
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Depends on the alimony.
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I DO love a project, but turns out I couldn’t embrace Ro*Tel. To be honest, I didn’t try too much, and I may still. In the meantime I have embraced variations of piperade.
Yes, this is from NYT, but others will follow.
“There are variations of this dish throughout the Mediterranean. The Basque piperade, made with slender, slightly piquant peppers called piments d’espelette and stirred into scrambled eggs along with bayonne ham, has some heat; whereas Italian peperonata is sweet through and through. A North African version, chakchouka, is spiced with fiery harissa and a spice blend made with caraway and coriander, cayenne and garlic, and is usually served with eggs poached right on top of the stew. See the variations below.”
Stewed Peppers with Tomatoes, Onions and Garlic
Others
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I most often come across reveultos, in Spain, where it’s a common starter dish on menus. Restaurant I like in Tenerife does the eggs with prawns and some red pepper.
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We had two British exchange students stay with us when I was young. They helped me with my homework. I do sprinkle in an extra letter now and then I blame on that experience. It wouldn’t be so bad if I was consistent, but I’m not. Mostly ‘u’ sometimes ‘a.’
They did teach me how to use semi-colons properly.
You know this? You’re a literary Lion!
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Shouldn’t that be
You know this; you’re a literary Lion 
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Pretty cool, two different inferences…
My D schooled me on colons and semi-colons a few weeks ago. Turns out I was WAAY off.
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