Does your family make a certain dish and call it by the totally wrong name?

[princesscinderella]

I think American Chop Suey or Goulash is regional like - Hoagie - Grinder or Submarine sandwich. All are the same but a different name. My husband’s family is from New England so they called it chop suey and it was goulash in my house as a kid. I too never liked it, green/red peppers just overpower everything and should be used sparingly IMO.

I make what I refer to as “bland chicken” in the crockpot where I put spices and an onion with some chicken breasts to make it pull apart and tender. I will then use it for multiple dishes for a few days, such as tacos, in pasta, buffalo chicken dip etc. I called it bland because then it can have other spices or sauces with it later. Well my son’s girlfriend tried my bland chicken and she said it’s not bland at all and tastes great and renamed it versatile chicken. It started a debate amongst the kids and they decided it should always be e called bland chicken because it’s funnier than versatile chicken. My son now makes it in his small crock pot after calling for the recipe at his college apartment. He loves to make chicken nachos with it.

 

[SirDuff]

Growing up we had a dish my father’s side of the family called “china”. It wasn’t until I left home that I realized the rest of the world called it shepherds pie or cottage pie.
My father’s family is from Quebec and apparently this is common in that area. There are theories on why but no one really knows.

Not quite "china", it is "pate chinois" in Quebec.
https://www.curiouscuisiniere.com/shepherds-pie-quebec/

 

[leebee]

Casserole ingredients: Loose cooked up hamburger with some diced onion, creamed corn, mashed potatoes, layered in that order.

My aunt introduced us to this and always called it Chinese Pie, so that's what we called it. I guess many people call it Shepherd's Pie, but to my knowledge Shepherd's Pie is a recipe from the UK, made with lamb. The Little Guy here has called this "Supper Pie" since he was 3, instead of Shepherd's Pie, as that's what he thought his grandmother was calling it. We ALL call it Supper Pie now!

 

[china mom]

My in-laws have been calling Watergate Salad "green gook" since the beginning of time. They did not believe me when I told them that it actually had a name.

We grew up on Soupa Avgolemeno (Greek) which translates to lemon egg soup. It was always Lemonade Soup in out house.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My in-laws have been calling Watergate Salad "green gook" since the beginning of time. They did not believe me when I told them that it actually had a name.

It's pistachio salad in my family that said that is an actual alternative name for watergate salad (I've seen it referred to as delight vs salad with pistachio but never IRL).

 

[ronandannette]

Growing up we had a dish my father’s side of the family called “china”. It wasn’t until I left home that I realized the rest of the world called it shepherds pie or cottage pie.
My father’s family is from Quebec and apparently this is common in that area. There are theories on why but no one really knows.

I call that dish Shepard’s Pie too, but since it’s made with beef instead of lamb, it’s actually a Cottage Pie. I also call rutabaga turnip, always and call orange sweet potatoes yams. And I’m not sure if this is strictly wrong or just regional - I’ve never used the word roll for a small chunk of bread in my life. It’s always buns.

 

[china mom]

It's pistachio salad in my family that said that is an actual alternative name for watergate salad (I've seen it referred to as delight vs salad with pistachio but never IRL).

Yes, those are all alternate names for my family's special, unique family recipe "green gook" which they seem to think they invented

 

[Shadeaux]

My in-laws have been calling Watergate Salad "green gook" since the beginning of time. They did not believe me when I told them that it actually had a name.

We just call it the 'green stuff'. I forgot the actual name was Watergate salad!

 

[easyas123]

Interesting, that looks very close to something my MIL makes that she calls goulash.

Yeah … that looks like my childhood nemesis that we called goulash.

My mom made something she called Goulash - pasta sauce, ground burger mixed in macaroni noodles.

Boy was I surprised (may I say, very pleasantly) when I was in Hungary and had Goulash. I mean, I knew what my Mom made wasn't really goulash but boy those two things were like night and day to me. I'll take what I got in Hungary any day - sorry Mom!

 

[KPeterso]

My mom always made a dish "Veal Scallopini ala marsala with cheese - made with chicken". I could never remember all that and it became marsala with cheese. Everyone know what is meant with that name.

 

[lovesmurfs]

When DS was born my mother made a hamburgery casserole. The recipe was "The Casserole." The rest of the world calls it "Shepherd's Pie" (or, really, cottage pie, as it's beef and not lamb).

I also used to make the Hungry Jack Beef Casserole when the kids were growing up. Because the biscuits were all around the outside, we just called it "Wagon Wheel."

 

[barkley]

growing up we called-

pasta with pesto 'green spagetti'
minestrone was 'leftover' or 'clean out the fridge' soup (cuz my Italian 'auntie' made it weekly using whatever dibs and dabs of leftover veggies were in her fridge).

now-i can't think of anything we make but ranch dressing will forever be called 'yummy sauce' thanks to my kid's decades ago daycare that introduced them to it.

 

[Diznygrl]

Yeah that tomato/beef/macaroni dish pictured above has always been called goulash in my family, which I always thought was strange, since it's not really goulash either (a Hungarian stew). Didn't even know other people were calling it goulash too.

 

[MamaMermaid]

Mine is a bit... inappropriate. We make peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses on top. When my cousin took the cookies to work, a co-worker who was from India (super sweet guy, there was a bit of a language barrier) called them Nipple Cookies. We all thought it was hilarious and have called them that for the past 20 years.

 

[JoanneAZ]

Mine is a bit... inappropriate. We make peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses on top. When my cousin took the cookies to work, a co-worker who was from India (super sweet guy, there was a bit of a language barrier) called them Nipple Cookies. We all thought it was hilarious and have called them that for the past 20 years.

I’m a retired OB nurse. Our lactation consultants (breastfeeding experts) would do the same with both the chocolate kisses and the pink kisses from Valentine’s Day to make boob cookies.

 

[kanne323]

American chop suey is the New England version of (American) goulash. Each family may tweak it slightly, but it's so common in New England that it's on restaurant menus.

Pate chinois is what my father's family calls Shepard's pie/cottage pie. They're northern Mainers of Acadian and Quebecois descent.

 

[JoanneAZ]

Not quite "china", it is "pate chinois" in Quebec.
https://www.curiouscuisiniere.com/shepherds-pie-quebec/

Well, it was probably due to the very broken English of my grandmother because china is what she called it.

 

[sarahann77]

I can't think of a dish we actually make. But my mom and her father had this rhyming banter they always did while at a Chinese restaurant for naming dishes. It included chicken cacciatore. It's only recently that I called it out and surprised her to acknowledge that's an Italian dish and not chinese. She didn't have an answer if that was an item on the menu to give it some basis at the one she went to though. Just that it went with the rest of their banter.

 

[disneyseniors]

I hadn’t either, but apparently it’s a thing. Here’s an example.

View attachment 1028255

We call our variation of this recipe Marzetti.

 

[NotUrsula]

I think that "American Chop Suey" is more a reference to the style of putting it together than any inference that it's Chinese. Actual Chop Suey is Chinese in origin, (known as tsap seui in Cantonese); but loosely translated, I'm told that means "odds & ends" -- basically whatever you happen to have on hand, mixed-up together. What we now generally think of as "Chop Suey" was popularized in the US by Chinese immigrants in the 1800s, who often could not source a lot of traditional Chinese ingredients, so they improvised and used whatever was available and affordable (which for food sellers also had the benefit of making white American customers less wary of eating it because the ingredients looked relatively familiar.)

I think that the "American Chop Suey" with the macaroni, tomato paste, ground beef and peppers was probably something that was created to cheaply stretch leftover meat, and nicknamed "Chop Suey" because like its namesake, it was thrown together from items already in the pantry. Same deal with calling it Goulash -- I think to Americans who didn't know the original, "goulash" probably sounded like something that was kind of a mish-mash of things randomly thrown together.

South Louisiana's gumbo is the same kind of concept; named from an African word that means essentially the same thing -- a mix of lots of things. The base of the soup is always the same, a roux, and it always is served with rice, but the number of variations of what else goes into it are pretty much infinite, as long as the ingredient can hold up to being simmered a very long time without turning to mush (which is why you don't put potatoes in gumbo.)

FWIW, I grew up in Louisiana, and we didn't use any of those names for that vaguely Italian noodle dish. Some people I knew called it goulash, but my family didn't. We mostly called it beef & noodles, though when I make it myself I always use Italian sausage instead of ground beef. There is also a similar dish that includes sliced sausage that is known as Cajun Spaghetti (though it uses small pasta, not long noodles). Goulash in our house was the real thing, which my mom had been taught to make by a Hungarian refugee she knew during WW2 (it was usually a vegetarian version during the war, though; meat was very hard to come by, so it was just the traditional broth and veggies then.)