Cuisine: A Style of Cooking With a Place Attached
Cuisine is a style or tradition of cooking, usually tied to a country or region. The French word simply means kitchen, and English borrowed it for the grander sense.
Cuisine means a coherent cooking tradition — its ingredients, techniques and habits taken together. English borrowed the French word for kitchen and gave it a promotion: in French a *cuisine* is the room, and English speakers use it for the whole culinary culture.
- A style of cooking. *Thai cuisine.*
- The food of a place or restaurant. *The hotel's cuisine is excellent.*
- A named approach. *Haute cuisine.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | cuisine | Regional cuisine. |
| Related | culinary | Culinary skills. |
| Related | cuisinier | A trained cuisinier. |
| Phrase | haute cuisine | Classic haute cuisine. |
| Phrase | nouvelle cuisine | The nouvelle cuisine movement. |
How it is used in a sentence
- The restaurant serves modern Turkish cuisine.A tradition, treated as a single thing.
- Haute cuisine emphasises technique and presentation.The elaborate French restaurant tradition.
- Nouvelle cuisine reacted against heavy sauces.A 1970s French movement towards lighter cooking.
Cuisine, cooking, gastronomy and food
- Cuisine — a tradition with its own logic and ingredients
- Cooking — the activity, or a personal style
- Gastronomy — the study and appreciation of good eating
- Food — the plain word for what is eaten
- Fusion — deliberately combining two cuisines, a term now often avoided
From French *cuisine*, from Late Latin *cocina*, a kitchen, from *coquere*, to cook. The same Latin verb gives English cook, kitchen, biscuit and precocious — literally cooked too early.
Is cuisine countable?
Yes when naming traditions: *the cuisines of southern Europe*. Uncountable when referring to the cooking at one place.
What is haute cuisine?
The elaborate French restaurant tradition codified by chefs such as Escoffier, marked by technique, hierarchy and formal presentation.