*** Quoting Andrew Rokhin from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***


 CS> You will find more confusion though if you talk about cooking as the
 CS> words Harent quite the same.  A North American thinks of a light
 CS> fluffy white bread Hwith the word 'biscuit' but to the english it's a
 CS> cracker (hard flat thing) and Hto the Australians it's a cookie (hard
 CS> baked sugar product).  Can give some Hsuprises when following a recipe
 CS> for 'biscuits' if you dont know the country of Horigin.
AR> Ouuu shit! :) It's realy largest problem ?

Pretty much!  Normally there wont be any confusion at all when talking
across ¨the various languages til you get to cooking words.  And even then,
it's not ¨obvious at first that youmean different things with the same
words.

Here's a few more that are not standard across the globe.  Pumpkin.  It's a
¨specific item to the USA/Canada folks.  It's not a specific elsewhere and
¨includes many items of the squash family.

Mince.  Means to chop finely.  In some areas just saying 'mince' though can
¨mean what a USA/Canada person calls 'ground beef'.  An American hearing
'mince ¨meat' thinks of the English dried fruit concoctionthat we've always
thought had ¨a strange name for a fruit item (grin).  I guess North
Americans swapped over ¨due to an early kitchen gadget called a 'grinder'
which also handles meat so we ¨call it 'ground meat' or if being specific,
will say 'ground beef, ground ¨chicken, ground pork' etc.

Potato is a generic word almost everyone can figure out but be careful with
¨yam, sweet potato, and taro.  Radish can be equally interesting especially
in ¨Japan where a standard 'radish' is a Daikon (do a google to get an
idea, very ¨different item).  If  Japan recipe says 'grated horseradish'
you will have to ¨check from context to see if they mean daikon (most of
the time they do) or a ¨wasabi root (can substitute any hot horseradish
root for that and will work ¨well enough in a recipe).  In Japan, 'radish'
is a generic word when ¨translated.

Foretunately no one gets upset over these little variations though the
european ¨understanding of a 'green pepper' can get one in very hot
circumstances fast if ¨not corrected!  (They think it means a chile pepper
vice a bell pepper which is ¨extremely mild).

Enjoy!
                                       xxcarol

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