In American English, yes, absolutely. If you see salsa on the menu in any general audience American restaurant you can expect it to be a chunky dip, red or green. But in American Spanish the various (smooth) cooking sauces are usually called salsas caseras and there are a bunch of different ones, Mexican but also Puerto Rican and other Carribbean, Central and South American, etc.
I didn’t even realize there was such a thing as an Italian salsa verde until I was grown up and living on the East Coast.
4 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
22
I suppose this is the Anglophone appropriation of a word which, in its original, simply means sauce, as you indicate. In English English, salsa would imply something chunky in which to dip stuff.
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
24
Which would certainly be possible in the UK. There are four salsa flavoured crisps on this gobsmackingly long list of flavours available in the UK (although I think they are all actually tortilla chips, not potato crisps):
So even though tortillas are almost nonexistent in merrie olde, Doritos, which are tortilla chips, are a major brand?
My gosh, the world is a mysterious place…
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
28
I reckon it’s the fact that we inhabit a small, cold island off the coast of Europe that makes us suck in all sorts of foodstuffs from around the world. And customs too - the American Halloween is fast replacing our own Bonfire Night (5 Nov). That’s been around since 1605, with its own related foods - but I give it only another generation till its forgotten.
