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Chitlins (soul food)
Chitlins (chitterlings), pig intestines cleaned and simmered or fried, are a soul food staple of the African American South tied to slavery-era foodways, the Jim Crow-era Chitlin Circuit, and documented Yersinia food safety risks during holiday preparation.
Chitterlings
Chitterlings, or chitlins, are pig small intestines eaten as food, an old European dish now central to African American Southern and winter holiday cuisine; raw preparation carries Yersinia enterocolitica risk, requiring pre-boiling and careful handling.
Choco pie
Choco pie (초코파이) is a Korean marshmallow-filled, chocolate-coated snack cake launched by Orion in 1974 and also made by Lotte, Crown, and Haitai; the name is generic, and Orion's version sells in 60+ countries with 84% of sales overseas.
Chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from fermented, roasted, ground Theobroma cacao seeds, consumed in the Americas for thousands of years before the first solid bar was made in 1847.
Chocolate bar
Chocolate bar: solid molded confection of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, and sugar; first made by Joseph Fry in 1847; mass-produced by Hershey (1900) and Cadbury Dairy Milk (1905); types defined by legal cocoa minimums.
Chocolate brownie
Chocolate brownie: dense American bar cookie of chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. Credited to Chicago's Palmer House for the 1893 World's Fair; fudgy, chewy, and cakey styles differ by fat, flour, and leavening ratios.
Chocolate cake
Chocolate cake, or torta al cioccolato-style layer cakes, is a cake flavored with cocoa powder or chocolate. Early 19th-century American versions were yellow cake with chocolate frosting; the 1828 cocoa press and 1902 recipe pamphlets popularized chocolate-flavored cakes.
Chocolate chip cookie
Chocolate chip cookie, or Toll House cookie: American drop cookie with chocolate pieces, invented by Ruth Graves Wakefield at the Toll House Inn, Whitman, Massachusetts, late 1930s; recipe published 1938, licensed to Nestlé in 1939, chips marketed from 1940.
Chocolate truffle
Chocolate truffle: round ganache confection (chocolate and cream), coated in couverture or cocoa; named for the fungus; documented from 1883, origin legend Petruccelli, Chambéry 1895; shelf life governed by water activity.
Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats
Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats (Flødeboller, teacakes, Schwedenbombe, Krembo) are biscuit-based confections with marshmallow or egg-white foam filling under a hard chocolate shell, invented in 19th-century Denmark with many national variants.
Cholent (טשאָלנט)
Cholent (טשאָלנט), also called hamin, dafina, or schalet, is the slow-cooked Jewish Sabbath stew prepared Friday and kept warm overnight for the Shabbat midday meal, typically with meat, beans, barley, and potatoes in the Ashkenazi version.
Cholula Hot Sauce
Cholula Hot Sauce is a mild Mexican hot sauce made from árbol and piquín peppers, recognizable by its round beechwood cap, owned by McCormick since 2020.
Chopped cheese
Chopped cheese, also chop cheese, is a New York City bodega sandwich of griddle-chopped ground beef, American cheese, and onions on a hero roll, credited to East Harlem's Hajji's (Blue Sky Deli) with disputed creators and 2016 mainstream fame.
Chorizo
Chorizo (Portuguese chouriço) is a paprika-seasoned pork sausage from Iberia. Spanish chorizo is cured and eaten sliced; Mexican chorizo is fresh, chile-colored, and crumbled and cooked before eating.
Chouquette
Chouquette: small French unfilled choux pastry puff, about 2-3 cm, topped with pearl sugar (sucre perlé) before baking; eaten at breakfast or le goûter; part of the pâte à choux family with éclairs and gougères.
Chow mein
Chow mein (炒麵, "stir-fried noodles") is a Cantonese noodle dish brought to America by Gold Rush-era immigrants. Distinct from lo mein by wok-frying, it split into East Coast crispy, West Coast soft, and sandwich variants.
Chowder
Chowder is a thick, chunky seafood or vegetable soup or stew, named from French chaudiere (cooking pot). First attested 1751; brought by Breton fishermen via Newfoundland to New England; famous variants include milk-based New England and tomato-based Manhattan clam chowder.
Christmas carp
Christmas carp: pond-raised carp eaten fried with potato salad on Czech Christmas Eve, also in Poland, Slovakia and Austria; bought live from street tanks, bathtub-kept, scales kept for luck.
Christmas pudding
Christmas pudding, also called plum or figgy pudding, is a British steamed dessert of dried fruit, suet, breadcrumbs, spices and brandy, flambéed at Christmas dinner. It evolved from medieval savory plum pottage, was named by Eliza Acton in 1845, and spread through the British Empire.
Chuck steak
Chuck steak: beef steak from the chuck (shoulder/forequarter) primal, ribs 1–5 and scapula, high in collagen and usually braised, with tender exceptions flat iron, chuck eye, and Denver steaks suited to grilling.
Churrasco
Churrasco, also called churrasco à gaúcha or Brazilian barbecue, is South American meat roasted unseasoned over embers on skewers or grills. It is the emblematic dish of Rio Grande do Sul's gaúcho culture, seasoned only with coarse salt, served in rodízio churrascarias, and distinct from Argentine asado.
Churro
Churro: a deep-fried stick of scalded wheat-flour dough (flour, water, salt) extruded through a star tip, a Spanish and Latin American breakfast pastry; related to porras, distinct from doughnuts, with disputed origins and a growing global market.
Chutney
Chutney (Hindi caṭnī, चटनी) is an Indian condiment family: fresh ground herb, fruit, or coconut pastes eaten daily, and the sweet vinegar-preserved British colonial version such as Major Grey's mango chutney.
Ciabatta
Ciabatta, Italian slipper bread invented 21 September 1982 by miller Arnaldo Cavallari in Adria, Veneto, as a sandwich rival to the French baguette; high-hydration (70–85%) lean dough, open irregular crumb, originally Ciabatta Polesana.
Çiğ köfte
Çiğ köfte (raw meatball) is a southeastern Turkish dish of bulgur, isot pepper, and traditionally raw minced meat, now usually meatless; registered Şanlıurfa (2009) and Adıyaman meatless (2018) geographical indications, spread nationally after 2008 regulation.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon, including Ceylon or true cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) and cassia (C. cassia, C. burmannii, C. loureiroi), is a spice from dried Cinnamomum bark, distinguished by cinnamaldehyde levels, coumarin content, and fraud-prone trade.
Cinnamon roll
Cinnamon roll, also cinnamon bun or Swedish kanelbulle: a spiral of enriched yeast dough filled with cinnamon sugar. Swedish version has cardamom and pearl sugar; American version is sweeter with cream cheese frosting; Kanelbullens dag is October 4.
Cioppino
Cioppino: Italian-American seafood stew from San Francisco, invented by Genoese immigrant fishermen in the late 1800s, with a tomato-and-wine broth, Dungeness crab, and shellfish; name from Ligurian ciuppin.
Citrus fiber
Citrus fiber is a functional food ingredient made from the peel and pulp left after citrus juicing, used to add fiber and replace gums and starches in clean-label foods.
Citrus fruit extract
Citrus fruit extract is a food ingredient recognized as generally recognized as safe by the FDA in 2014 as an antimicrobial and preservative in nonstandardized foods.