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Poultry Products
Poultry products are foods manufactured from poultry, including raw carcasses, cuts, nuggets, patties, and canned items. Regulated by USDA's Poultry Products Inspection Act (1957) and graded A, B, C; US sector sales $81.7 billion in 2025.
Pound cake
Pound cake, also called quatre-quarts, is a dense butter cake named for its original one pound each of flour, butter, sugar, and eggs, first documented in 1747 England and traditionally leavened only by beaten egg.
Poutine
Poutine is a Québécois fast-food dish of french fries topped with fresh cheese curds and hot brown gravy, created in Centre-du-Québec around 1957 at Warwick and 1964 at Drummondville, and now a national Canadian dish.
Powdered sugar
Powdered sugar, also called confectioners' sugar, icing sugar, or 10x sugar, is granulated cane or beet sugar ground to a fine powder with about 3-5% cornstarch anticaking agent; used for icings, glazes, and dusting.
Pozole
Pozole (posole) is a Mexican hominy soup of nixtamalized cacahuazintle corn simmered with pork or chicken, in white, red, and green regional varieties, finished at the table with lettuce, radish, onion, oregano, chile, and lime, and eaten at September independence festivities.
Prairie oyster
Prairie oyster: a nonalcoholic hangover-remedy drink of raw egg with intact yolk, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, vinegar, salt, and pepper, first printed by Leo Engel in 1878; also means cooked bull calf testicles.
Praline
Praline, from French praslin, names three distinct confections: French caramelized nuts and praliné paste, Belgian filled chocolates since Neuhaus 1912, and the soft cream-and-pecan New Orleans patty.
Prawn cracker
Prawn cracker (krupuk udang, keropok udang, bánh phồng tôm, kropeck): a Southeast Asian deep-fried snack of tapioca starch, shrimp and seasonings, steamed, sliced, dried, and puffed in hot oil; Codex protein grades and Thai market size distinguish it.
Pretzel
Pretzel (German Brezel/Brezn): knotted alkaline-dipped bread from southern Germany; soft lye bread or hard snack; 3–5% NaOH bath, Bavarian vs Swabian styles, EU-protected Bayerische Breze, $2.9B US market.
Processed cheese
Processed cheese: cheese melted and emulsified with salts like sodium citrate or phosphate into a shelf-stable, non-ripening product. Invented in Switzerland 1911; patented by James L. Kraft in 1916; includes cheese food and spread grades.
Processed meat
Processed meat: meat transformed by salting, curing, fermentation, or smoking for flavor or preservation (hot dogs, ham, sausages, jerky). IARC Group 1 carcinogen; 50 g daily raises colorectal cancer risk about 18%.
Profiterole
Profiterole: a small filled pastry of puffed choux pastry (pâte à choux), classically filled with Chantilly cream or vanilla ice cream and coated in hot chocolate sauce; 16th-century French word from profit, related to cream puffs, éclairs, and croquembouche.
Prosciutto
Prosciutto, Italian dry-cured raw ham from a pig's hind leg, preserved with salt and air; Prosciutto di Parma PDO (14 months minimum, Ducal Crown mark) and Prosciutto di San Daniele (pressed, foot kept) are the leading protected varieties.
Pu pu platter
Pu pu platter (pupu, pu-pu): an American Chinese and Hawaiian appetizer sampler, from Hawaiian pū-pū; earliest documented menu Trader Vic's Honolulu 1950s, first press mention Luau 400, 1957.
Pudding
Pudding is a food word with split meanings: in British English a dessert, dessert course, or boiled/steamed sweet or savory dish; in American English a milk-based custard-like dessert. From Middle English poding, a sausage (Latin botellus).
Puff pastry
Puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) is an unleavened laminated dough of alternating dough and butter layers, up to 700, that rises by steam alone when baked; distinct from yeasted croissant dough and low-fat phyllo.
Pumpernickel
Pumpernickel: dense, dark Westphalian German rye bread baked 16+ hours, EU PGI-protected since 2014; distinct from American wheat-rye pumpernickel; name from Westphalian dialect insult (1663).
Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin pie is an American spiced pumpkin custard baked in a crust, the classic Thanksgiving dessert. Its custard form dates to Amelia Simmons's 1796 American Cookery; it was promoted by Sarah Josepha Hale and is now made mostly with Illinois canned pumpkin.
Pumpkin pie spice
Pumpkin pie spice is a cinnamon-led blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice, sometimes clove, with no pumpkin in it; marketed since 1931, made famous by Starbucks's 2003 latte.
Pupusa
Pupusa: El Salvador's national dish, a thick nixtamalized corn or rice masa disc stuffed before cooking with cheese, beans, chicharrón, or revueltas, griddled dry on a comal and served with curtido and tomato salsa; decree 655 of 2005 made it the national dish.
Puri (पूरी) (food)
Puri (पूरी), also poori, is an unleavened Indian deep-fried flatbread of stiff wheat dough that puffs in hot oil; variants include Bengali luchi (maida), Bedmi puri (urad dal), and rice-flour pathiri.
Purified seawater salt replacer
Purified seawater salt replacer (Mediterranea Agua de Mar): filtered, deboronated Mediterranean seawater notified as GRAS (GRN 000618, FDA no-questions letter May 27, 2016) as a liquid flavoring agent replacing sodium chloride in foods.
Quark (dairy product)
Quark (German Quark, Topfen; fromage frais, tvorog) is a fresh, unripened acid-set dairy product of Central Europe, made by fermenting pasteurized milk to about pH 4.6 with lactic acid bacteria and a little rennet, then draining the curd without cutting, cooking, or aging.
Quarter Pounder
Quarter Pounder: McDonald's hamburger named for its 4 oz pre-cooked beef patty, created by Al Bernardin in Fremont, California in 1971, added to the U.S. national menu in 1973, switched to fresh beef in 2018, and sold abroad as the Royal Cheese or McRoyal Cheese.
Quesadilla
Quesadilla: a Mexican folded corn or flour tortilla filled with cheese (queso) or other stews, cooked on a comal or fried; famously cheese-optional in Mexico City, a 16th-century post-colonial Spanish-indigenous fusion.
Quiche
Quiche, best known as quiche lorraine, is a French savory egg-and-cream custard baked in a pastry crust, originating in Lorraine; the original version uses bacon, eggs, and crème fraîche and contains no cheese.
Quince cheese
Quince cheese, also called dulce de membrillo or quince paste, is a dairy-free, sliceable paste of quince pulp and sugar set by the fruit's high pectin, classically served with Manchego as queso y dulce.
Raclette
Raclette: Swiss Valais dish and semi-hard cheese melted and scraped over boiled potatoes with pickled onions and gherkins; name from French racler, official since 1874, Raclette du Valais AOP since 2007.
Ragout
Ragout (French ragoût, from ragoûter "revive the taste") is a slow-cooked stew of meat, poultry, or game in a seasoned sauce; distinct from Italian ragù pasta sauce and used in Dutch croquettes.
Ragù
Ragù, from French ragoût, is the Italian family of slow-cooked meat sauces for pasta; the two main versions are minced-meat, lightly tomatoed ragù alla bolognese, codified in 1982 and updated in 2023, and whole-cut, tomato-rich ragù napoletano.