Save Me...

I think his problem may have been with the spelling - it's carpaccio, there's an r in there.
Your definition is correct as far as I know, that's what they serve here in Italy as carpaccio, but as i say there is an R in the word.

Also if you want to impress him (and if you have to write it - spelling should certainly not be a requirement for a chef and I doubt you'd have to write it, but just in case, since he seems a nitpicker) it's spelled vinaigrette not vinnergarette, and arugola is i think the american term (rughetta in italian) not aragula.

Good luck. And remember, someone who nitpicks on this sort of thing may just feel the need to prove he's smarter. And if he needs to prove he's smarter by putting you down, he doesn't feel that smart. :)
You probably shouldn't broadcast this last little bit of wisdom but you can think it if he gets you down.

"Arugula," (A R U G U L A), aka "Rocket."

BDL

Communication is a key aspect of EVERY business.

If I had seen the board with the spelling problems I'd have concluded that the business was shoddily run by people who don't know enough to write corrrectly or take the time to learn how to spell it correctly in their messages.

Neither one is good for your business.

Yes, many consider spelling insignificant, but as I said at the start, communication is key for EVERY business.

Time to pony up the effort to spell correctly or construct a support system if you're unable to do it by ability or solo effort.

It matters.

Phil

Attention to detail is important. However, I've found that mentoring my subordinates, rather than hammering them, usually produces better results. Having said that, yep, you're going to have to conform to what the boss wants.

Oops! - here they also call it rucola, so i put the o in there. When I left the states, rocket was practically unknown, and i had never even heard it called arugula.
Thanks bdl.

If you are writing the special board or are responsible for those that do, you need to know proper spelling. Pronunciation is also important.
In a less formal environment, such as this forum or your own notes, not so important.
These days, with all of the resources available (the internet, food lover's companion, etc.), there's no excuse for a customer to see anything mispelled.

He/she is the Chef.
You are representing him/her when you write the special.
I don't blame the Chef for being less than happy.
And having you learn the proper way doesn't seem heavy handed.
If he ridiculed you that would be different.

I was not objecting to the fact that he wanted it spelled correctly, especially since it was a public menu. I hate to find misspelled words on posters, menus, signs, etc. What I object to is his way of doing it, with a tone of put-down. What if he just said, "hey, you spelled it wrong - there's an R in it" - and then if the same person posted another misspelled word on the board, he could have said "you seem to have problems with spelling so from now on can you check the spelling before you post anything for the public? thanks."

I think people who use putdowns - whether verbally expressed or just in the tone of voice - are overcompensating their own insecurity, probably the result of others having put them down. Life is hard enough as it is, why do people like to make it harder?

The original post did not convey to me an understanding of why it was important. More an attitude of hoop jumping for a subordinate.

I wanted to convey the reason it was important. I did not intend it as an attack.

I'm no fan of jumping through hoops myself.

Yeah, i understand. I didn;t think you were attacking.

I think the fact that the original post didn't see why it was important is that the Big Chef didn't even bother to say what was wrong with it - and Kalach was left with the idea that he didn;t know what a carpaccio was, not that it might have been misspelled. Which tells me the Big Chef doesn't much care about the spelling himself!

Spelling aside.....

I could be wrong---wouldn't be the first time---but my understanding was that carpaccio is traditionally made with veal, rather than beef.

Shouldn't matter so much on a modern American menu. But, if we're having a test (as apparently the OP is), we should make an extra effort to get it right.

KYH - I agree.

A menu will say either "Carpaccio" meaning veal, or it will state "Beef Carpaccio" to specify that it is beef and not veal. Or even a "Tuna Carpaccio" or "Vension Carpaccio" for more examples.

Good point.

It's the spelling. It's carpaccio. Also, the term "thin slices" should be replaced with "thin sliced, pounded almost transparent." Other than that, you're good.

Carpaccio?

Since the original poster has yet to return to clarify what the real issue is here, I'm going to assume for now that he wants a better description of "carpaccio".

From what I know, "carpaccio" is not an Italian food or even an Italian word (it's in none of my Italian-English dictionaries).

According to possibly anecdotal history, it was invented at Harry's Bar in Venice by the English owner Harry. It was the name of an Italian painter of many years ago.

And according to them it's a plate of trimmed sirloin sliced-wafer-thin beef, dressed with a spray of mayonnaise mixed with lemon juice. Note beef.

I've always had it with olive oil, pepper and the light mayonnaise but nowadays it's dressed with all manner of stuff including capers, onions, parmesan shavings, dijon mustard, and -- YUCK -- balsamic.

"Carpaccio" is now also preceded by veal, venison, salmon or tuna.

Could be the important thing here is what your new chef thinks it SHOULD be.

Joe

Carpaccio was a renaissance era Venetian painter.

I have no idea why gardenguru can't find the word "carpaccio," in one of his Italian dictionaries. It's pretty well established as the name of a dish.

If carpaccio was an impromptu "invented" at Harry's -- if it's not Italian, what is it? Danish?

An alternate creation myth for carpaccio has it served under a paitning by Carpaccio in one or another Milanese restaurants.

Whether it was created by either of those two or some unnamed third party, as Stravinsky observed, "Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal."

BDL

Carpaccio

I don't know why I can't find it in the Italian dictionaries either. I know the alphabet -- both English and Italian -- and I still cannot find it. These are language dictionaries, by the way, not cooking dictionaries. Could that be it?

Would it hold that if an Englishman invents a recipe in Italy and names it after an Italian painter that it is "Italian"? Or is it "English"? Or an "Italian-dish-invented-by-an-Englishman"?

Maybe it's like "cioppino". That's an Italian seafood stew supposedly invented by Italian fisherman in San Francisco (which is a ways west of Venice) in the 60's (50's?). I grew up eating it made by my Sicilian grandmother who brought her recipe from Terrasini. There's plenty of tomato and wine and seafood stock based seafood stews over there. Still can't find the word.

Joe

"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal....."

Or, as Lubenchevski, the greatest mathametician to ever get chalk dust on his jacket put it, "if you steal from one person it's plagerism. If you steal from everybody, it's research."

Here's from the English to English dictionary.:smiles:

carpaccio–noun
an appetizer of thinly sliced raw beef served with a vinaigrette or other piquant sauce.

More FWIW:

The original "Harry" of Harry's Bar in Venice wasn't English, he was American and a silent partner who had nothing to do with the kitchen, the menu or carpaccio. That would be the active owner/partner -- Giuseppe (aka "Joe") Cipriano.

And yes, it's as Italian as anything else -- just not old Italian.

Was the Cioppino reference, That's an Italian seafood stew supposedly invented by Italian fisherman in San Francisco (which is a ways west of Venice) in the 60's (50's?), conflated or garbled with carpaccio's origin? In any case it goes back a lot farther than the sixties. Cioppino probably dates back into the late 19th Century in the Monterey and SF Bay Areas. At the very least, it was on the original menu at Bernstein's Fish Grotto (used to be on Powell, closed in '81) when it opened in 1912.

BDL

carpaccio?

Good thing I'm still listening.

Yep, the former owner of Harry's Bar in Venice (Joe) gave the dish the name "carpaccio" based on the name of the painter. "Carpaccio" is someone's name, not a "word". That was my point. Doesn't matter whether English, American or Italian. it was a marketing name. And the only definition of it was what he actually made at the time.

The only connection that "cioppino" has with "carpaccio" is that it, too, is not a "word", American, Italian, Danish or otherwise. (although very loosely based on a Ligurian word or maybe someone's story about a cook hollering to the fishermen). In other words, "cioppino" seems to be another marketing word (yep, even in 1880 SF).

And to add to my crypticity, my grandmother brought her "cioppino" recipe from Terrasini (via New York, St. Louis and San Diego). She'd never been to SF.

Thanks for adding to the whole story bdl.

Joe

Why do you call cioppino "a marketing term?"

I don't speak Italian in any meaningful way, but do speak and/or read a bunch of other romance languages well enough to have a feeling for the "rules" of etymology. At a guess, "cioppino" might be a conflation of chi e and pinne -- meaning, "which fish in this?" In other words, "mystery seafood stew." Or, it could just as likely be a play on chiappa.

If your grandmother called her fish stew "cioppino," that would be an interesting thing, and would seem to indicate the name came from the old country more strongly than its absence in your dictionary implies it does not.

BDL

I always thought that "cioppino" was one of those Itenglish or Engalian words that immigrants invented mixing the two languages. Having been brought up speaking that language, it made sense. We said "Butseri" (bootserry) to mean boots, which garbled butteri (boot'-teh-ree) - the cowboys of Maremma who wore boots (boots would be stivali in italian). We said "la refrigerata" (lah reh-free-jeh-reh-ta) for refrigerator (frigorifero). "lo zinco" for sink (some sinks used to be made of zinc, so it made some sense) and 'don't "skootchie" me' - (scocciare -pronounced skoch-chah'-reh meaning annoy) among many others.
I always figured that Cioppino was called that because all the fish was chopped up and that the word derived from the english word "chop" with the italian diminutive. (Cioppino being pronounced chop-pee'-no

I'm also interested in etymology, ever since i was really little. I remember clearly being about 8 and trying to figure out the word "locomotive" - i figured out that loco meant crazy (people would say "you're really loco") and motive is an idea or plan. So i thought, along the lines of "fulton's folly", that peoiple thought the inventor of the locomotive had a crazy idea. Pretty good thinking but all wrong. So also may be my hypothesis on cioppino and chopping!

Anyway, sorry BDL, it was a nice idea, but chi e' pinne would mean "who is fin" and even slightly ungrammatical. chi would never become ci (chi is pronounced kee, ci is pronounced chee - soft c if followed by e or i, hard if followed by h) Also the double consonant is a strong sound, pinne would be pronounced peen-neh and that double-ness doesn't seem to erode much. and pinne wouldn;t generally mutate into pino. the ino is clearly a diminutive. So the mystery remains. Or perhaps some guy called Tony Cioppino was the inventor of the dish!

Look at this. Wordreference.com is a very good online dictionary site.
carpaccio - Dizionario Inglese-Italiano WordReference.com

Apart from that, there are plenty of words you won't find in many dictionaries. That doesn;t mean they're not part of the language. New words pop up all the time and are incorporated. And structurally, with the peggiorative ending "accio" it has all the signs of being an Italian word.

I've never seen it with mayonnaise, but from what I gather from what seem to be reliable italian sites, that's an ingredient. Here in Rome it's usually oil and parmigiano and then anything else that the chef fancies, including raw artichokes sliced thin. Mustard would be very unlikely, i'd think, but you never know, and I guess the main reason soemthing is called carpaccio is that it's thinly sliced and uncooked, and can be meat or fish or squash or artichokes or whatever the cook decides. But i've never been to Harry's bar so i have no idea what the original is like and even so, no law says people can;t take a good idea and fly with it.

a search on google in italian got me that it was invented by request of a regular at Harry's bar (owned by Cipriani, an italian, sponsored by a Harry, who was an American guy Cipriani lent money to and who came back years later and financed the establishment of the bar (as someone i think already mentioned).The "regular" was the countess Amalia Nani Mocenigo, who apparently was told by her doctor (in the 1950s) not to eat cooked meat and they say the name Carpaccio was in honor of the Venetian painter who used a particular brilliant red paint. (this, if true, would point to the beef theory of carpaccio, because veal would not be red.

But then, as i say, internet can be deceptive, we never really know who's writing the posts and if you skim through them they are full of incredibly contradictory information. The information about Harry and Cipriani is from the official site of Harry';s bar and should be reliable. Many other Italian sites describe the dish as being beef and mayonnaise and the story of the countess who couldn;t eat cooked meat.

Finally, you can see it's the weekend and I really don't feel like getting down to the work i have to do so I'm spending WAY too much time on internet!

carpaccio

It seems to me that the original poster (Kalach) wanted us to help him authenticize "carpaccio".

I offer that it is not a word that can be etymologized into some parts that will help Kalach figure out what carpaccio really is.

I offer that it is the name of an Italian painter and the name was used by Giuseppe at Harry's Bar in Venice for something he created to honor a guest.

I offer that what Joe made that day is "carpaccio". What I've read is that it was beef, sliced thin (not pounded) and drizzled with a lemony mayonniase. If someone else was actually there at the time and can offer the reality, please jump in.

Sure, just as we do with so many other foods, we construct all manner of versions. And maybe it's fair to call them "veal carpaccio", "tuna carpaccio", ad nauseum. And we can drizzle them with a gazillion permutations of sauce, cheese, who-knows-what.

Sorry Kalach. I did my best trying to find what "carpaccio" really is so that you can please your boss/chef. Maybe it's up to you to go to him/her and ask him for his version.

I'm inclined to believe that "carpaccio" is what Giuseppe at Harry's made. It's a poor dictionary that doesn't offer real "etymology" or "origins".

Btw, Vittoria called her fish stew "pesci cui sugu". Not "cioppino". But it was the same thing. Or maybe it wasn't; I'll have to look it up in a dictionary.

Joe

I could see how pounding may be part of the evolution of a dish. I can also see that the vinaigrette may also be of more modern leanings. All I was saying about the pounding and saucing is that, if you order _____ Carpaccio in a restaurant today, you will get hammer flattened meat, vinaigrette, and, most likely, a simple green salad beneath.

Actually I think our original poster had no idea what his Big Chef was mad about (since he didn't bother to tell him) and he imagined he gave the wrong name of the dish. Instead perhaps he just spelled it wrong.

But the fun of the forums is that each thread pulls out a new and a new piece of information and new ideas enter and it's really interesting. And won;t Kalach be surprised when he sees what a can-o-worms he opened!

My food spelling errors

For a long time I couldn't spell vinaigrette either.

Mayonnaise still throws me. I always want to put in only one n because of the vowel sounds on either side of the n. Spell check usually saves me here.

Probably a whole bunch of other french food I can't spell either but I've not learned much french food to know which they are.

carpaccio

FWIW:

From a contemporary Italian cookbook (written in Italy, edited in Germany and England, and printed in China), I found more details of Harry's Bar and the history of "carpaccio". A side note: Giuseppe passed away some years ago and his son Arrigo (Italian for Harry!) now runs the place.

The book included this recipe from Arrigo (now called "Carpaccio di Cipriani; Beef Carpaccio, Cipriani Style"):

1/4 cup/60 ml freshly made mayonnaise (aioli)
2-3 Tbs single cream
1 tsp mild mustard
1 tsp Worcester sauce
Tabasco; salt
10 oz/300 g fillet steak
Rocket salad (arugula) to garnish

Mix the freshly made mayonnaise, cream, mustard, and Worcester sauce until blended and creamy. Season with Tabasco and salt, and leave to rest for 15 minutes for the flavors to mingle.

Place the fillet steak in the freezer just long enough to become lightly forzen. Then cut the meat into wafer-thin slices and arrange on 4 individual plates or one larger one. Pour over the mayonnaise sauce and garnish with rocket.

"Today this dish can be found on almost every Italian menu at home and abroad -- albeit with variations."

Joe

There's a Korean raw beef dish of thin sliced beef served with a hot chile sauce. I can't think of the name and I've not eaten it.

Korean raw beef

Could it be "Yook Hwe Be Bim Bop"?

Raw shredded beef and a raw egg yolk, served over rice sometimes with vegetables, spiced with red chili paste (or on the side). By itself, it's called "Yook Hwe".

Joe