GLOSSARY OF FOOD TERMS
Beef Garum - think of it like a sort of fermented, beef “fish sauce’. We hold beef scrap, water, salt and koji at 65 degrees celcius for 60 days until it breaks the beef down to amino acids rich in Umami.
Black Garlic - fermented garlic
Bonito (katsuobushi) - dried, smoked flakes of tuna
Boquerones - pickled white anchovies
Bottarga - salted and cured fish roe
Calabrian Chile - a variety of chile pepper grown in the Italian region of Calabria. Spicy and smoky.
Cantabrian Anchovy - widely considered the best anchovies available. Meaty fillets from the Bay of Biscay off the coast of Cantabria in Northern Spain.
Capsicum - an active component of chili peppers and the chemical irritant that produces a sensation of burning in any tissue with which it comes into contact.
Castelvetrano - a green, “fruity”, creamy, almost buttery-textured olive from the town of Castelvetrano in Sicily, Italy.
Chermoula - a sauce/condiment typically served over fish of herbs and spices
Coppinger Cheese - a semi-soft, washed rind, RAW cow’s milk cheese from Sequatchie Cove Creamery.
Crack - slang term for our house-made condiment of slow-cooked, crispy garlic and chiles.
Cumberland Cheese - a smooth, semi-firm, natural rind, RAW cow’s milk cheese from Sequatchie Cove Creamery.
Diplomat - used in pastry, it’s a cream of egg, milk, cream and a little cornstarch.
Escabeche - a method of cooking. In layman’s terms, the escabeche method means “cooked then pickled”. For instance, you’ll often see this applied to our menu with seafood like mussels. First we’d cook the mussels by steaming them in white wine and aromatics, then we’d pickle them afterward.
Espelette - a chile pepper from the Basque region of France and Spain known for it’s delicate, nuanced heat and flavor profile.
Falky Salt - term for the Maldon flaky sea salt we use to finish/season lots of our food with.
Gelatin - commonly used in pastry as a stabilizer, gelatin is a flavorless ingredient derived from collagen taken from animal parts. Note* - because it is an animal byproduct it is not vegetarian/vegan friendly.
Gelato - dessert made with milk, cream and sugar and is slowly stirred by a machine while freezing, result in very little air being whipped in.
Granita - semi-frozen dessert often made from the frozen juice of fruit with a high water content. For instance, peach granita on our menu would most likely be made by juicing peaches (and maybe adding gelatin to stabilize, and/or sugar for sweetening) and then freezing. Once frozen it’s cut into pieces, blitzed through a Robot-Coupe, and then refrozen.
Green Garlic (spring garlic) - “young” garlic that hasn’t fully matured yet.
Ice Cream - made with milk, cream and sugar and is churned by a machine to incorporate significant amounts of air into the dessert, creating a more whipped texture.
il Tratturello - extra virgin olive oil from Gustiamo with a spicy profile that we use as our finishing OO
(Albert) Katz - an olive oil/vinegar producer from Napa, California. We use many his vinegar’s, including; Late Harvest Zinfandel, Honey Viognier, Apple Cider, and Sauvignon Blanc.
Koji - a fungus or “mold” used to produce Sake, or ferment soybeans for soy sauce and miso (and many, many other things). We use it often and for many different reasons, including but not limited to: fermenting, marinating, tenderizing, flavoring, etc. Koji can be applied to many different grains but we most commonly use barley koji.
Kombu - dried seaweed/kelp. We use it for many purposes, most importantly Kombu stock to produce a more umami layered stock.
Kosho - a spicy paste of yuzu zest and Japanese chili
Lacto-Fermentation (2%) - a traditional fermentation method involving submerging vegetables in a brine solution of salt and water. At FOLK we often omit the water from our lacto-ferments, and instead ferment in a vacuum (cryo-vac) sealed bag. 2% salt by weight is added to the fermentable item, then vac-sealed to create an anaerobic environment. The oxygen free envirnoment allows the food item to ferment without being exposed to harmful bacteria, resulting in a quick, clean fermentation.
Leoparding - a term we use to describe the charred spots on our pizzas.
Low Moisture Mozzarella - mozzarella cheese with lower moisture content than fresh mozzarella.
Milanesa - on our menu Milanesa refers to a half-chicken, de-boned, pounded thin, breaded and fried. in Italy it’s Milanesa, in Germany it’s Schnitzel, if you grew up in the south you’ve probably had chicken-fried-steak…it’s all the same concept.
Mop - used both as a noun and verb at FOLK.
Noun - a sauce or glaze consiting of fish sauce, black garlic, roasted garlic, soy, sherry vinegar and coriander, often used for proteins and vegetables cooked on the japanese grill.
Verb - when the sauce itself is brushed, or “mopped” onto a food item
‘Nduja (en-dooya) - a spicy, spreadable, Calabrian condiment made from pork and chiles with a high fat:lean ratio, usually 75%fat:25% lean. We sometimes combine ‘Ndjua in a 50:50 mixture with plugra butter to make ‘Nduja butter.
Pianogrillo - our workhorse extra virgin olive oil from Gustiamo that we use across the board in things like dressings, house-mayos, tonatto, etc.
Raclette - a Swiss, semi-hard, PASTEURIZED cow’s milk cheese
Rice Bran Oil - the oil we use in our fryer
Sake Lees - a paste of rice/koji/yeast sediment that is strained and separated after the Sake making process. We use it for flavoring, marinating and tenderizing.
Salamander - a kitchen applicance. Essentially a broiler.
Sorbet - Water, sugar, flavor of some sort (fruit, chocolate, coconut, nuts, etc.)
Spalache - a Chef Krajeck coined term used to describe dollops of sauce and cheese on a pie rather than an even spread.
Taramasalata - a traditional Greek meze made from “tarama” – salted and cured trout roe mixed and aerated with olive oil and lemon.
Tonnato - house-made “tuna mayo”
Vecchio - a hard, PASTEURIZED cow's milk cheese from the Veneto region of Italy. Aged for at least 12 months - similar to Parmigiano Reggiano.
Wiscorino - a Chef Krajeck coined term for the hard, PASTEURIZED sheep’s milk “Pecorino” cheese from Wisconsin.
XO - a Chinese condiment hailing from the Honk Kongese cuisine of the 1980’s. The “XO” was meant to translate as a sort of “luxury” sauce à la French Cognac or Brandy. It was originally made of dried seafood (shrimp/scallop), pork, garlic, shallot, chile and oil. At FOLK we’ve made several different XO’s over the years ranging from traditional to modern vegetarian takes like Collard Green XO.