1,165 articles
Currywurst
Currywurst (curry sausage) is a German fast-food dish of sliced fried sausage with curry ketchup, attributed to Herta Heuwer, Berlin, 4 September 1949, trademarked as "Chillup" in 1959, with rival Hamburg, Duisburg, and Ruhr claims and a famous Volkswagen factory version.
Custard
Custard: milk or cream cooked with eggs and sugar, thickened by egg-protein coagulation near 80°C; also called crème anglaise. Covers stirred, baked, and savory types, etymology from crustade, Bird's custard powder, and food safety.
Cut of beef
Cut of beef: portions of a cattle carcass separated into primal, subprimal, and retail cuts such as chuck, rib, loin, and round. Distinguished by USDA carcass grading (Prime, Choice, Select by marbling and maturity), muscle-driven tenderness, and matching cooking methods.
Cutlet
Cutlet: a small piece of meat or a breaded patty of minced meat, fish, or vegetables, from French côtelette (1706). Covers schnitzel, cotoletta alla milanese, tonkatsu, and Indian cutlets.
Dagwood sandwich
Dagwood sandwich: a tall, many-layered American sandwich of meats, cheeses, and condiments, named for Dagwood Bumstead of the Blondie comic strip (first skyscraper sandwich 1936, recipe 1947); also called Skyscraper Special; no fixed recipe.
Dairy product
Dairy products are foods made from milk, including drinking milk, fermented milks, cheese, butter, and whey products. EU law reserves names like yogurt and kephir; EU farms produced 160.0 million tonnes of raw milk in 2022.
Dal
Dal (dhal; Hindi दाल, from Sanskrit dalaḥ, 'to split') names both dried, hulled, split pulses (lentil, mung, urad, chana, toor) and the tempered South Asian stew made from them, eaten daily with rice or roti.
Dal bati (दाल बाटी)
Dal bati (दाल बाटी), served with dal as dal baati churma, is Rajasthan's baked wheat dough balls soaked in ghee, eaten with panchmel dal and sweet crushed churma; its boiled-then-baked Malwa cousin is dal bafla, distinct from Bihar's sattu-stuffed litti chokha.
Dandan noodles (担担面)
Dandan noodles (担担面) is a Sichuan dish of thin wheat noodles with chili oil, Sichuan pepper, preserved ya cai, and crisp minced pork, sold from shoulder poles.
Danish pastry
Danish pastry, called wienerbrød ("Viennese bread") in Denmark, is a sweet yeasted laminated pastry enriched with eggs and sugar, layered at roughly 24–54 fat folds, distinct from croissant and puff pastry, with Danish origins in 1840s Copenhagen.
Dark chocolate
Dark chocolate: high-cocoa, low-milk chocolate labeled by cocoa percentage, melting at 32–34°C, rich in flavanols like epicatechin; used in ganache, mole, and baking, with EFSA suggesting 10 g/day high-flavanol chocolate.
Dashi (出汁)
Dashi (出汁, だし) is Japanese soup stock made by extracting umami from kombu, katsuobushi, niboshi, or dried shiitake. Key facts: glutamate-inosinate synergy, ichiban and niban dashi, Ikeda's 1908 umami discovery.
Deep-fried butter
Deep-fried butter is a state fair food of frozen butter balls or sticks coated in dough and deep fried, created by Abel Gonzales Jr. at the 2009 State Fair of Texas, where it won Most Creative at the Big Tex Choice Awards.
Deep-fried Mars bar
Deep-fried Mars bar: a battered, deep-fried Mars chocolate bar from Scottish chip shops, credited to the Carron Fish Bar in Stonehaven (1992), a tourist symbol and stereotype of the Scottish diet.
Delicacy
Delicacy: English noun for a rare or expensive food prized in a particular culture, and for fineness, fragility, tact, or precision; from Middle English delicasie, first recorded 1325–75.
Dessert
Dessert is the sweet course served at the end of a meal, typically including cake, pie, fruit, pudding, and ice cream; the word comes from the French desservir, meaning "to clear the table".
Deviled egg
Deviled eggs, also called stuffed, dressed, salad, angel, or Russian eggs, are halved hard-boiled eggs refilled with a yolk-mayonnaise-mustard paste, topped with paprika; traced to ancient Rome, named in 1786 Britain, popularized in 1940s America.
Digestive biscuit
Digestive biscuit: semi-sweet British wheatmeal biscuit created by Alexander Grant at McVitie & Price in 1892 (1839 origin also claimed), named for baking soda once believed to aid digestion; chocolate version, nutrition, and comparative taste tests.
Dijon mustard
Dijon mustard (moutarde de Dijon) is a strong, smooth pale-yellow French mustard from Dijon, Burgundy, made from Brassica juncea or nigra seeds with verjus, vinegar, or white wine; the name is a recipe, not a protected origin, unlike Moutarde de Bourgogne IGP.
Dim sum (点心)
Dim sum (点心) is Cantonese small-dish cuisine of steamer-basket dumplings and buns eaten with tea during yum cha; born in Qing-era Guangzhou teahouses, now a Hong Kong cultural icon and listed intangible heritage.
Disco fries
Disco fries, a New Jersey diner dish of French fries topped with brown gravy and shredded mozzarella, named for 1970s clubgoers; the Tick Tock Diner in Clifton claims invention, and the dish is distinguished from poutine by its cheese.
Dole Whip
Dole Whip is a dairy-free pineapple soft serve created by Kathy Westphal at Dole for Disney World kiosks, debuting at Magic Kingdom's Aloha Isle in 1984 as DOLE Pineapple Whip, later sold in grocery freezer cups and as Dole Soft Serve mix.
Dollar slice
Dollar slice: a plain New York-style pizza slice sold for about $1 at budget NYC pizzerias, popularized by 99 Cent Fresh (2006) and 2 Bros. Pizza (2007); now typically $1.50 after 2023 inflation-driven price rises.
Dolma
Dolma (dolmades, sarma, tolma, mahshi) is a family of stuffed vegetable, fruit, and leaf dishes of Turkish origin name, widespread from the Balkans to Iran, with rice and meat fillings; Azerbaijani tradition is UNESCO-listed since 2017.
Donair
Donair: a Halifax, Nova Scotia spit-roasted sandwich invented by Greek immigrant Peter Gamoulakos in 1973, made of spiced ground beef, tomato, onion, and sweet evaporated-milk sauce; official food of Halifax since 2015.
Donburi (丼)
Donburi (丼) is the Japanese rice-bowl dish: steamed rice in a deep bowl topped with beef, chicken and egg, tempura, pork cutlet, eel, or seafood. Varieties include gyudon, oyakodon, tendon, katsudon, and kaisendon.
Dondurma
Dondurma (Maraş dondurması) is Turkish stretchy ice cream made with goat milk, sugar, salep from wild orchid tubers, and mastic; Kahramanmaraş style dates to 1920 and holds TÜRKPATENT geographical indication no. 344.
Doner kebab
Doner kebab (döner kebap) is seasoned meat roasted on a vertical rotating spit and carved in thin slices; the sandwich form was popularized in Berlin from 1972 by Kadir Nurman and became a German fast-food staple.
Dorayaki (どら焼き)
Dorayaki (どら焼き, 銅鑼焼き), also called Mikasa in Kansai, is a Japanese wagashi of two castella-like griddle-baked pancakes sandwiching azuki anko; named for its gong-like shape, modernized in Meiji-era Tokyo.
Dosa (food)
Dosa (dosai), the fermented rice-and-urad-dal crepe of South India, is a crisp breakfast staple served with sambar and chutney; attested in Tamil literature from roughly the sixth century AD and now a global dish.