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Falafel (فلافل)
Falafel (فلافل), also called ta'ameya in Egypt, is a Middle Eastern fried patty of ground soaked chickpeas or fava beans with herbs and spices, sold as street food across the Arab world, disputed between Egyptian and Israeli national claims, and now a global vegan staple.
Falooda
Falooda (फ़ालूदा, فالودہ), from Persian faloodeh, is a layered South Asian cold dessert drink of milk, rose syrup, vermicelli, basil seeds, and ice cream or kulfi, popular in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
Fat content of milk
The fat content of milk is the percentage of butterfat it contains, about 3 to 4 percent in cow milk, and a key measure of dairy quality and pricing.
Fava (Greek dish)
Fava (φάβα) is a Greek yellow split-pea purée; Santorini's version, from Lathyrus clymenum seeds, has been grown there for millennia and holds EU PDO status since 2010.
Feijoada
Feijoada is Brazil's national dish, a black bean stew with carne seca, smoked sausages, and pork, served with rice, couve, farofa, and orange. Documented since the 1820s, its slave-food origin story is contested; restaurants serve it Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Fërgesë
Fërgesë (fërgesa), Albanian baked dish of peppers, tomatoes, onions, and gjizë curd cheese; name from fërgoj, "to fry"; Tirana specialty with summer, liver, Gjirokastra, and Shkodër egg variants.
Fermented Foods
Fermented foods, or fermented foodstuffs, are foods made through desired microbial growth and enzymatic conversions, per the ISAPP definition. Includes yogurt, kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut, tempeh; studied for gut health, safety, and EFSA health-claim evidence.
Feta (φέτα)
Feta (φέτα) is the Greek PDO white brined cheese made from sheep milk or sheep with up to 30% goat milk in designated mainland and Lesbos regions, ripened at least two months in brine; protected since 2002.
Fettuccine Alfredo
Fettuccine Alfredo, or fettuccine all'Alfredo, is a Roman pasta dish of fettuccine, butter, and Parmesan created in 1908 by Alfredo Di Lelio; the American cream-based version differs, and the dish is far better known in the United States than in Italy.
Filé powder
Filé powder, also called gumbo filé or kombo, is ground dried sassafras leaves used in Louisiana Cajun and Creole cooking to thicken and flavor gumbo; added off heat, Choctaw in origin, exempt from the 1960 safrole ban.
Filet mignon
Filet mignon (fillet steak) is a thick, extremely tender, very lean steak cut from the beef tenderloin (psoas major), the priciest steak cut, cooked rare to medium rare and first printed on an 1899 New York menu.
Filet-O-Fish
Filet-O-Fish: McDonald's fish sandwich invented in 1962 by Cincinnati franchisee Lou Groen for Catholic Friday abstainers; won a 350-to-6 contest against Ray Kroc's Hula Burger; Alaska pollock, steamed bun, tartar sauce.
Filo (φύλλο)
Filo (φύλλο, phyllo, fillo), Greek for "leaf", is paper-thin unleavened dough layered with brushed butter or oil for baklava, spanakopita, and börek; unlike puff pastry, its fat is applied between sheets, not laminated into the dough.
Fish and chips
Fish and chips: battered deep-fried white fish with thick-cut fried potatoes, Britain's classic chippy takeaway. Combined in the 1860s in London or Lancashire from Jewish fried-fish and northern chip traditions; unrationed in both world wars.
Fish maw
Fish maw (dried swim bladder, 花膠-style delicacy) is one of the four seafood treasures of Chinese cuisine; a luxury trade worth hundreds of millions, driving totoaba poaching and vaquita bycatch, authenticated by DNA barcoding.
Fish sauce
Fish sauce (nước mắm, nam pla, patis) is a translucent condiment of fermented fish and salt, central to Southeast Asian cooking. Codex requires ≥6 months fermentation, ≥10 g/l nitrogen, ≥200 g/l salt; garum is its Roman ancestor.
Fishcake
Fishcake: a patty of fish. In Britain, fish mixed with mashed potato, breadcrumbed and fried; in East Asia, surimi fish paste products such as Japanese kamaboko and Korean eomuk (어묵, odeng), shaped and heat-set into a gel.
Flat iron steak
Flat iron steak (butler's steak, oyster blade) is a tender beef cut from the infraspinatus top blade muscle of the chuck, created by removing its central connective-tissue seam; second most tender cut, NAMP 1114D, developed from 2000s muscle-profiling research.
Flatbread
Flatbread: thin, often unleavened bread such as chapati, tortilla, naan, and pita; the oldest bread type, with evidence from Jordan dating to 14,400 years ago, baked at 300–600 °C.
Flavoring
Flavoring: ingredients added to food to impart or modify taste and aroma, from spices to volatile molecules; defined in US law at 21 CFR 101.22, FEMA-evaluated for GRAS, with diacetyl a known occupational hazard.
Fleur de sel
Fleur de sel (flower of salt, flor de sal) is hand-skimmed surface sea salt with fine pyramidal crystals, classically from Guérande, France (PGI 2012); used as a finishing salt, unlike pond-floor sel gris.
Floating island (dessert)
Floating island (île flottante, œufs à la neige, snow eggs) is a French dessert of poached or baked sweetened meringue on crème anglaise with caramel and almonds, distinct from crisp meringue desserts.
Fluffernutter
Fluffernutter: a New England sandwich of peanut butter and Marshmallow Fluff (marshmallow creme) on white bread. Trademarked by Durkee-Mower; name coined around 1960; added to Merriam-Webster in 2021.
Focaccia
Focaccia, or fugassa in Genoa, is an Italian yeast-leavened olive-oil-rich pan flatbread with a dimpled crumb; Liguria is its heartland, focaccia di Recco holds IGP status, and its roots trace to Neolithic husking trays.
Foie gras
Foie gras is a French food product made from the liver of a duck or goose fattened by force-feeding. It is a centerpiece of French festive cuisine.
Fondant icing
Fondant icing: a partially crystalline sugar paste of tiny sucrose crystals in saturated syrup, used poured or rolled to glaze and decorate cakes; 10–15% water, 371 kcal/100 g.
Fondue
Fondue, from French fondre (to melt), is the Swiss dish of cheese melted with white wine in a caquelon, with bread dipped on long forks; earliest recipe 1699 Zurich, national dish via 1930s Swiss Cheese Union promotion.
Fontina
Fontina is an Italian PDO semi-cooked cheese from Valle d'Aosta, made from raw whole milk of Valdostana cows, aged at least 80 days, with Fontina DOP Alpeggio and Lunga Stagionatura variants.
Fool's Gold Loaf
The Fool's Gold Loaf is a Denver sandwich of a hollowed loaf filled with a jar of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon, made famous by Elvis Presley's 1976 private-jet trip from Graceland.
Forshmak
Forshmak is a cold Ashkenazi Jewish appetizer of chopped salted herring, made as a pâté or spread with onion, hard-boiled egg, bread, apple, and butter or oil.