Culinary names, menu names, or kitchen names are names of foods used in the preparation or selling of food, as opposed to their names in agriculture or in scientific nomenclature. The menu name may even be different from the kitchen name. For example, from the 19th until the mid-20th century, many restaurant menus were written in French and not in the local language.
Examples include veal (calf), calamari (squid), and sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus gland). Culinary names are especially common for fish and seafood, where multiple species are marketed under a single familiar name.
Foods may come to have distinct culinary names for a variety of reasons:
Euphemism: the idea of eating some foods may disgust or offend some eaters regardless of their actual tasteTesticles: Rocky Mountain oysters, Prairie oysters, lamb fries, or animellesFish Milt: soft roe or white roe to disguise that is actually sperm not eggsThymus gland and pancreas gland: sweetbreadsKangaroo meat: "Australus" has been proposed as a euphemismAttractiveness: the traditional name may be considered dull, undistinctive, or unattractiveKiwifruit: a rename of the Chinese gooseberry, which references its fuzzy brown skin, and has now become its standard nameMahi-Mahi: the dolphinfish is often referred to with this name to avoid confusion with dolphin (the mammal) meatThe Patagonian toothfish is marketed as the Chilean sea bassThe African Cichlid found in many aquaria is presented as TilapiaThe spinal marrow of veal and beef is called amourettesGrouping of a variety of sources under a single nameTuna includes several different speciesEvocation of more prestigious, rarer, and more expensive foods for which they are a substituteLumpsucker (or lumpfish) roe is named lumpfish caviarCassia bark is called cinnamonLangostino is sometimes called lobster or "langostino lobster"In North America, many flounder species are called soles, e.g. Microstomus pacificus is named "Dover sole"Evocation of a specific culinary traditionShrimp in Italian-American contexts is often called scampiFlorentine refers to dishes that include spinachSquid is often called by its Italian name, calamari, on menusSocial differencesThe words beef, veal, pork, mutton, and venison are derived from the words used by the French-speaking lords in post-Conquest EnglandOtherIn French, chestnuts are called châtaignes on the tree, but marrons in the kitchenLaver is a culinary name for certain edible algae