Heating Up Things In A Pan

[The Hersch]

I had no idea what poêle meant and neither did my gracious but somewhat inexperienced waiter. He said fried but he meant pan seared.

"Poêlé" is one of those really unhelpful menu terms. It means, literally, "stoved", or by extension "cooked on the stove" but whether it's pan-fried, shallow-fried, sauted, or whatever, the word "poêlé" doesn't really reveal. (The noun "poêle" means "stove".) A similarly ambiguous menu term is the German "gebraten", which might mean fried, or grilled, or roasted, or baked. (Or even, as in "Schweinebraten", braised.)

[DonRocks]

"Poêlé" is one of those really unhelpful menu terms. It means, literally, "stoved", or by extension "cooked on the stove" but whether it's pan-fried, shallow-fried, sauted, or whatever, the word "poêlé" doesn't really reveal. (The noun "poêle" means "stove".) A similarly ambiguous menu term is the German "gebraten", which might mean fried, or grilled, or roasted, or baked. (Or even, as in "Schweinebraten", braised.)

Hmm. I'm fluent in French, and although I've never studied the etymology of this word, I've never known it to mean anything other than "pan-fried" (note that does not (necessarily) translate into "breaded"). I guess I could dig out my Petit Robert if anyone wants me to.

In case anyone cares, it's pronounced "pwah-lay."

[Mark Slater]

Hmm. I'm fluent in French, and although I've never studied the etymology of this word, I've never known it to mean anything other than "pan-fried" (note that does not (necessarily) translate into "breaded"). I guess I could dig out my Petit Robert if anyone wants me to.

In case anyone cares, it's pronounced "pwah-lay."

A poèle is a sauté pan. I have never heard it pronounced "pwah-lay", always po-eh-lay.

[DonRocks]

"Poêlé" is one of those really unhelpful menu terms. It means, literally, "stoved", or by extension "cooked on the stove" but whether it's pan-fried, shallow-fried, sauted, or whatever, the word "poêlé" doesn't really reveal. (The noun "poêle" means "stove".) A similarly ambiguous menu term is the German "gebraten", which might mean fried, or grilled, or roasted, or baked. (Or even, as in "Schweinebraten", braised.)

Hmm. I'm fluent in French, and although I've never studied the etymology of this word, I've never known it to mean anything other than "pan-fried" (note that does not (necessarily) translate into "breaded"). I guess I could dig out my Petit Robert if anyone wants me to.

In case anyone cares, it's pronounced "pwah-lay."

A poèle is a sauté pan. I have never heard it pronounced "pwah-lay", always po-eh-lay.

Okay, I went ahead and looked this up in Petit Robert (*), just to be doubly, triply sure. Here's the deal:

There are three distinct words (not meanings, but words) for "Poêle," all three nouns, that are pronounced "pwal" (notice there is no <<accent aigu>> on the final "e").

1. Un poêle (masculine) is the drape on top of a coffin, and is not related to this conversation.

2. Un poêle (masculine) is an oven - essentially an enclosed, heated chamber. The exact modern definition, in French, is <<Appareil de chauffage clos, oú brûle un combustible,>> the key words being chauffage (heat) and clos (closed). Related words are fourneau, insert, and salamandre. This often refers to cooking food, but is also a generic term.

3. Une poêle (feminine) is a pan. The exact definition, in French, is <<Ustensile de cuisine en métal, plat, généralement rond, à bords bas, et muni d'une longue queue,>> which is a long way of saying "a round pan with a long handle on it." Examples are une poêle a frire (a frying pan), une poêle a crêpes (a crepe pan), and une poêle antiadhésive (a nonstick pan).

"Poêlé" (note the accent aigu over the final "e") is an past-participal adjective, pronounced "pwah-lay" (Mark, note that if you say "po-eh-lay" fast enough, it becomes "pwah-lay"), and is derived from the transitive verb Poêler. This is related *only* to the third noun, the feminine one. The verb itself means "to cook [whatever] in a pan," requires a direct object, and is rarely used; whereas the adjectival form means "cooked in a pan," and is used all the time on menus. Note there is also a feminine version of the adjective spelled "Poêlée" (note the second "e"). You would use the masculine adjective to modify a masculine noun, e.g., un oeuf poêlé (a fried egg), and the feminine adjective to modify a feminine noun, e.g., une truite poêlée (a fried trout).

Related to the previous two paragraphs, and almost exclusively used to describe cuisine, is another feminine noun: "Poêlée" which means "the contents of a pan." This is exactly identical in spirit as saying "a fricassee, a roast, etc." The example given is something Emile Zola wrote: "une poêlée d'alouettes sautées au beurre" (a pan of larks, sauteed in butter). And yes, an <<alouette>> is indeed from that children's song:

A-lou-ett-e

gentille a-lou-ett-e

A-lou-ett-e

je te plumerai.

Which, unfortunately, translates to:

Songbird,

sweet songbird,

songbird,

I'm going to pluck your feathers

(and presumably sauté you with butter).

And the following verses don't get much nicer:

Je te plumerai la tête

je te plumerai la tête

I am going to pluck your head

I am going to pluck your head

etc. European nursery rhymes and songs have this way of sounding so gentle and soothing, when they're really anything but (refer to "Ring around the rosie! A pocket full of posies! Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!" which, believe it or not, has been [perhaps erroneously] translated as dying from the Bubonic Plague.)

(*) It's worth learning French *just* so you can appreciate what a masterwork the two-volume Petit Robert set is (the first volume being a dictionary, the second, an encyclopedia). Petit Robert is so good that once you realize what it contains, you almost can't believe that something like it exists. Any advanced French student will vouch for this - it is simply an incredible accomplishment, a triumph, and expensive as hell.

[The Hersch]

I'm sorry, my definition of "poêlé" as "stoved" was clearly incorrect; it should be "panned", from the feminine rather than the masculine noun, as Don has laid out. I think the pronunciation should be closer to pwellay than pwahlay, but I'll take no stand on that. But the meaning is not as cut-and-dried as Don suggests. It means cooked in a pan, and the cooking method is not necessarily pan frying, but can also encompass sauteeing, shallow-frying, and even braising or stewing. This is from the Larousse:

poêler

• Cuire un aliment à la poêle dans un corps gras.
• Cuire à l'étuvée.

"Cuire un aliment à la poêle dans un corps gras" can be rendered into English as "cooking food in a pan with fat", which covers considerable territory by itself, while "Cuire à l'étuvée" means "stewing". I've never actually encountered a stewed dish that had been described as poêlé on a French menu, but I have certainly had dishes so characterized that I would not call "pan fried".

[JBag57]

Okay, I went ahead and looked this up in Petit Robert (*), just to be doubly, triply sure. Here's the deal:

There are three distinct words (not meanings, but words) for "Poêle," all three nouns, that are pronounced "pwal" (notice there is no <<accent aigu>> on the final "e").

1. Un poêle (masculine) is the drape on top of a coffin, and is not related to this conversation.

2. Un poêle (masculine) is an oven - essentially an enclosed, heated chamber. The exact modern definition, in French, is <<Appareil de chauffage clos, oú brûle un combustible,>> the key words being chauffage (heat) and clos (closed). Related words are fourneau, insert, and salamandre. This often refers to cooking food, but is also a generic term.

3. Une poêle (feminine) is a pan. The exact definition, in French, is <<Ustensile de cuisine en métal, plat, généralement rond, à bords bas, et muni d'une longue queue,>> which is a long way of saying "a round pan with a long handle on it." Examples are une poêle a frire (a frying pan), une poêle a crêpes (a crepe pan), and une poêle antiadhésive (a nonstick pan).

"Poêlé" (note the accent aigu over the final "e") is an past-participal adjective, pronounced "pwah-lay" (Mark, note that if you say "po-eh-lay" fast enough, it becomes "pwah-lay"), and is derived from the transitive verb Poêler. This is related *only* to the third noun, the feminine one. The verb itself means "to cook [whatever] in a pan," requires a direct object, and is rarely used; whereas the adjectival form means "cooked in a pan," and is used all the time on menus. Note there is also a feminine version of the adjective spelled "Poêlée" (note the second "e"). You would use the masculine adjective to modify a masculine noun, e.g., un oeuf poêlé (a fried egg), and the feminine adjective to modify a feminine noun, e.g., une truite poêlée (a fried trout).

Related to the previous two paragraphs, and almost exclusively used to describe cuisine, is another feminine noun: "Poêlée" which means "the contents of a pan." This is exactly identical in spirit as saying "a fricassee, a roast, etc." The example given is something Emile Zola wrote: "une poêlée d'alouettes sautées au beurre" (a pan of larks, sauteed in butter). And yes, an <<alouette>> is indeed from that children's song:

A-lou-ett-e

gentille a-lou-ett-e

A-lou-ett-e

je te plumerai.

Which, unfortunately, translates to:

Songbird,

sweet songbird,

songbird,

I'm going to pluck your feathers

(and presumably sauté you with butter).

And the following verses don't get much nicer:

Je te plumerai la tête

je te plumerai la tête

I am going to pluck your head

I am going to pluck your head

etc. European nursery rhymes and songs have this way of sounding so gentle and soothing, when they're really anything but (refer to "Ring around the rosie! A pocket full of posies! Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!" which, believe it or not, has been [perhaps erroneously] translated as dying from the Bubonic Plague.)

(*) It's worth learning French *just* so you can appreciate what a masterwork the two-volume Petit Robert set is (the first volume being a dictionary, the second, an encyclopedia). Petit Robert is so good that once you realize what it contains, you almost can't believe that something like it exists. Any advanced French student will vouch for this - it is simply an incredible accomplishment, a triumph, and expensive as hell.

As long as you are invoking childrens' songs here when discussing the French language, you should check out the small book titled Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames. Not really food related, so please feel free to delete.

[The Hersch]

As long as you are invoking childrens' songs here when discussing the French language, you should check out the small book titled Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames. Not really food related, so please feel free to delete.

Ah, a fellow initiate!

Un petit d'un petit

S'étonne aux Halles

Un petit d'un petit

Ah! degrés te fallent

[B.A.R.]

Okay, I went ahead and looked this up in Petit Robert (*), just to be doubly, triply sure. Here's the deal:

There are three distinct words (not meanings, but words) for "Poêle," all three nouns, that are pronounced "pwal" (notice there is no <<accent aigu>> on the final "e").

1. Un poêle (masculine) is the drape on top of a coffin, and is not related to this conversation.

2. Un poêle (masculine) is an oven - essentially an enclosed, heated chamber. The exact modern definition, in French, is <<Appareil de chauffage clos, oú brûle un combustible,>> the key words being chauffage (heat) and clos (closed). Related words are fourneau, insert, and salamandre. This often refers to cooking food, but is also a generic term.

3. Une poêle (feminine) is a pan. The exact definition, in French, is <<Ustensile de cuisine en métal, plat, généralement rond, à bords bas, et muni d'une longue queue,>> which is a long way of saying "a round pan with a long handle on it." Examples are une poêle a frire (a frying pan), une poêle a crêpes (a crepe pan), and une poêle antiadhésive (a nonstick pan).

"Poêlé" (note the accent aigu over the final "e") is an past-participal adjective, pronounced "pwah-lay" (Mark, note that if you say "po-eh-lay" fast enough, it becomes "pwah-lay"), and is derived from the transitive verb Poêler. This is related *only* to the third noun, the feminine one. The verb itself means "to cook [whatever] in a pan," requires a direct object, and is rarely used; whereas the adjectival form means "cooked in a pan," and is used all the time on menus. Note there is also a feminine version of the adjective spelled "Poêlée" (note the second "e"). You would use the masculine adjective to modify a masculine noun, e.g., un oeuf poêlé (a fried egg), and the feminine adjective to modify a feminine noun, e.g., une truite poêlée (a fried trout).

Related to the previous two paragraphs, and almost exclusively used to describe cuisine, is another feminine noun: "Poêlée" which means "the contents of a pan." This is exactly identical in spirit as saying "a fricassee, a roast, etc." The example given is something Emile Zola wrote: "une poêlée d'alouettes sautées au beurre" (a pan of larks, sauteed in butter). And yes, an <<alouette>> is indeed from that children's song:

A-lou-ett-e

gentille a-lou-ett-e

A-lou-ett-e

je te plumerai.

Which, unfortunately, translates to:

Songbird,

sweet songbird,

songbird,

I'm going to pluck your feathers

(and presumably sauté you with butter).

And the following verses don't get much nicer:

Je te plumerai la tête

je te plumerai la tête

I am going to pluck your head

I am going to pluck your head

etc. European nursery rhymes and songs have this way of sounding so gentle and soothing, when they're really anything but (refer to "Ring around the rosie! A pocket full of posies! Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!" which, believe it or not, has been [perhaps erroneously] translated as dying from the Bubonic Plague.)

(*) It's worth learning French *just* so you can appreciate what a masterwork the two-volume Petit Robert set is (the first volume being a dictionary, the second, an encyclopedia). Petit Robert is so good that once you realize what it contains, you almost can't believe that something like it exists. Any advanced French student will vouch for this - it is simply an incredible accomplishment, a triumph, and expensive as hell.

I want to have sex with Carla Bruni.

[DonRocks]

3. Une poêle (feminine) is a pan. The exact definition, in French, is <<Ustensile de cuisine en métal, plat, généralement rond, à bords bas, et muni d'une longue queue,>> which is a long way of saying "a round pan with a long handle on it." Examples are une poêle a frire (a frying pan), une poêle a crêpes (a crepe pan), and une poêle antiadhésive (a nonstick pan).

"Poêlé" (note the accent aigu over the final "e") is an past-participal adjective, pronounced "pwah-lay" (Mark, note that if you say "po-eh-lay" fast enough, it becomes "pwah-lay"), and is derived from the transitive verb Poêler. This is related *only* to the third noun, the feminine one. The verb itself means "to cook [whatever] in a pan," requires a direct object, and is rarely used; whereas the adjectival form means "cooked in a pan," and is used all the time on menus. Note there is also a feminine version of the adjective spelled "Poêlée" (note the second "e"). You would use the masculine adjective to modify a masculine noun, e.g., un oeuf poêlé (a fried egg), and the feminine adjective to modify a feminine noun, e.g., une truite poêlée (a fried trout).

I'm sorry, my definition of "poêlé" as "stoved" was clearly incorrect; it should be "panned", from the feminine rather than the masculine noun, as Don has laid out. I think the pronunciation should be closer to pwellay than pwahlay, but I'll take no stand on that. But the meaning is not as cut-and-dried as Don suggests. It means cooked in a pan, and the cooking method is not necessarily pan frying, but can also encompass sauteeing, shallow-frying, and even braising or stewing. This is from the Larousse:

poêler

• Cuire un aliment à la poêle dans un corps gras.
• Cuire à l'étuvée."Cuire un aliment à la poêle dans un corps gras" can be rendered into English as "cooking food in a pan with fat", which covers considerable territory by itself, while "Cuire à l'étuvée" means "stewing". I've never actually encountered a stewed dish that had been described as poêlé on a French menu, but I have certainly had dishes so characterized that I would not call "pan fried".

I promise I'm not trying to argue; I'm trying to learn. I said "cooked in a pan" - what is wrong with that? I didn't say anything had to be fried, or cooked in fat, or cooked over high heat; I just said "cooked in a pan."

Regarding the pronunciation, Petit Robert says "pwale" which is the standard written pronunciation, and doesn't take into account accents or regional dialects. Alsace, Gascony, Provence, Paris, Montreal, Haiti, Casablanca, and New Orleans will produce eight different inflections.

A poèle is a sauté pan. I have never heard it pronounced "pwah-lay", always po-eh-lay.

Oh! Mark, I just this second (Wednesday, May 8th, 9:30 AM) noticed you typed poèle. I thought before you had used a circumflex ("ˆ"), not an accent grave ("`"). Several things:

1. It should have a circumflex, and a pan is "un poêle."

2. Since it has a circumflex, it's pronounced "pwal".

3. BUT, if it had an accent grave like you wrote, it would have been pronounced as you wrote: "po-el".

(4. The lack of accent on the final "e" makes it virtually silent.)

So other than the misspelling, you were correct.

[The Hersch]

Sorry Don. I was actually responding not to your then-most-recent post, but to an earlier one where you said:

Hmm. I'm fluent in French, and although I've never studied the etymology of this word, I've never known it to mean anything other than
"pan-fried" (note that does not (necessarily) translate into "breaded").

I thought for a moment that I might have imagined it, but there it is. This doesn't make you a bad person (or me a good one).

[DonRocks]

Sorry Don. I was actually responding not to your then-most-recent post, but to an earlier one where you said:

Hmm. I'm fluent in French, and although I've never studied the etymology of this word, I've never known it to mean anything other than "pan-fried" (note that does not (necessarily translate into "breaded").

I thought for a moment that I might have imagined it, but there it is. This doesn't make you a bad person (or me a good one).

Ah! Well, you're right for questioning it then.

But you're still a bad person.

[zoramargolis]

I've heard it pronounced po-e-lay, by chefs. The word is used to describe a pan-cooking method where the pan is tilted up using the handle, so that the bubbling hot fat (butter or oil) gathers at the low point and then is spooned over the meat or fish, basting it as it cooks. Often used as a verb--"I'm poele-ing these scallops in clarified butter."

[DonRocks]

I've heard it pronounced po-e-lay, by chefs. The word is used to describe a pan-cooking method where the pan is tilted up using the handle, so that the bubbling hot fat (butter or oil) gathers at the low point and then is spooned over the meat or fish, basting it as it cooks. Often used as a verb--"I'm poele-ing these scallops in clarified butter."

French chefs?

Seriously, I beg everyone to trust me on the pronunciation of this one. There may be an English bastardization roaming the American kitchens (*), but the correct Parisian French pronunciation, forgetting the last syllable, is pwal. Double-checked, triple-checked, reverified, and placed a retirement account wager in Las Vegas!

(*) Note: that link I just gave does have a localement (i.e., "locally")-spoken variant of pwɛl which, depending on diphthongian velocity, could be heard as po-el. It would sort of be like saying "ouais" for "oui" which is perfectly fine and nobody will dock you for it.

A gentleman was vacationing in Hawaii. He approached a native, and said, "Excuse me, sir, I've been wondering: is your state pronounced "Hah-wah-ee," or "Hah-vah-ee?"

The native said, "Hah-vah-ee."

Gentleman: "Thank you very much!"

Native: "You're velcome."

(That was one of my dad's favorite jokes.)

[Mark Slater]

Note that another word pronounced "pwal" (poils) in French means pubic hair.

[DonRocks]

Note that another word pronounced "pwal" (poils) in French means pubic hair.

Thus, fried pubic hair would be des poils poêlés.

Technically, pubic hair is "poils pubiens," so "Des poils pubiens poêlés puent bien" means "The fried pubic hair smells bad," and if you know how to speak French, "pubiens" rhymes with "puent bien" so it sounds funny.

Which brings us full circle back to this post, eight years later.

Probably should think about splitting these posts out of the Azur thread. but that would be splitting hairs. I am sorry.

[The Hersch]

"pubiens" rhymes with "puent bien" so it sounds funny.

"Pubiens" and "puent bien", while funny, aren't a rhyme, they're an identity. (This is probably as pedantic as it is possible even for me to get.)

[DonRocks]

"Pubiens" and "puent bien", while funny, aren't a rhyme, they're an identity. (This is probably as pedantic as it is possible even for me to get.)

And it's also false, smarty pants - all identities are rhymes.

Don, Bébé.

[The Hersch]

And it's also false, smarty pants - all identities are rhymes.

Don, Bébé.

I'm afraid you're going to need to cite an authority for this outlandish claim. I'll give one: H.W. Fowler, Modern English Usage, "Technical Terms" article, rhyme (Pros.); As now understood in English verse, r. is identity of sound between words or lines extending back from the end to the last fully accented vowel & not farther; greet & deceit, shepherd & leopard, quality & frivolity, stationery & probationary, are rhymes; seat & deceit, station & crustacean, visible & invisible, are not. Note the & not farther. And okay, here's another from Webster's 2nd: "The correspondence, in two or more words or verses, of terminal sounds beginning with an accented vowel, which, in modern English usage, must be preceded by different consonant sounds, or by a consonant in one case and none in the other", and the article goes on to list as non-rhymes "eight, ate", to which we might add "Pubiens, puent bien". I've been studying, loving, and practicing rhyme for 50 years, and I know what I'm talking about in this one narrow field if not in many others. And before you object that the "rhyming" words "pubiens" and "puent bien" are French and not English, the claim of "rhyming" was made in English in an English-language forum.

Which doesn't make you a bad person (or me a good one).

[zoramargolis]

I'm afraid you're going to need to cite an authority for this outlandish claim. I'll give one: H.W. Fowler, Modern English Usage, "Technical Terms" article, rhyme (Pros.); As now understood in English verse, r. is identity of sound between words or lines extending back from the end to the last fully accented vowel & not farther; greet & deceit, shepherd & leopard, quality & frivolity, stationery & probationary, are rhymes; seat & deceit, station & crustacean, visible & invisible, are not. Note the & not farther. And okay, here's another from Webster's 2nd: "The correspondence, in two or more words or verses, of terminal sounds beginning with an accented vowel, which, in modern English usage, must be preceded by different consonant sounds, or by a consonant in one case and none in the other", and the article goes on to list as non-rhymes "eight, ate", to which we might add "Pubiens, puent bien". I've been studying, loving, and practicing rhyme for 50 years, and I know what I'm talking about in this one narrow field if not in many others. And before you object that the "rhyming" words "pubiens" and "puent bien" are French and not English, the claim of "rhyming" was made in English in an English-language forum.

Which doesn't make you a bad person (or me a good one).

Try telling that to a contemporary pop or country song lyricist and see how far you get.

[The Hersch]

Try telling that to a contemporary pop or country song lyricist and see how far you get.

I'm certainly not suggesting that off-rhymes or non-rhymes, including identities, cannot be legitimately and even beautifully deployed in verse or song, just that they shouldn't be called rhymes. William Butler Yeats wrote a very famous and very lovely poem using identities called "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven":

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

(This is also known as "Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" and was supposedly addressed to Yeats's great love Maud Gonne.)

[zoramargolis]

Well that surely is nice and all, but it don't rhyme.

Here's a couple a' verses for the opening number I wrote for my show, "Tanglin' Hearts" which is being revived this coming July, in L.A.

What should an outlaw know out on the run?

I asked my daddy and daddy said: "Son,

listen real good when the weathermen say

don't tow a trailer in Texas today"

When Texas tornadoes come out of the sky

A man and a rattlesnake see eye to eye

Once West Texas breezes have started to blow

Y'might find your Stetson in New Mexico

Texas is heaven, Texas is hell HELL

In Texas the diff'rence

twixt heaven and hell

ain't so easy to tell

Out here in Texas, big business is king

Our oil rigs pump and our cash boxes ring

We believe in free enterprise here, which is why

We got the best politicians that money can buy

repeat chorus, and etc.

[DonRocks]

From Magdalena (I emailed her this link):

"Amusant! Une vraie "salade Russe".

Fort heureusement, le Petit Robert met tout le monde d'accord!

Bye."

[The Hersch]

Because I want everyone to be happy,

.