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Masala chai (मसाला चाय)
Masala chai (मसाला चाय), Indian spiced milk tea, also called chai; boiled black tea with milk, sugar and variable spices. A 20th-century Indian adaptation of a British colonial plantation commodity, now a national symbol.
Mashed potato
Mashed potato: cooked potatoes crushed and enriched with butter and milk or cream. Texture hinges on variety (russet vs waxy) and gentle handling; overworking releases starch, producing gluey mash.
Mashing
Mashing: crushing solid but soft food into a soft mass with a fork, masher, or blender. Used in cooking and in IDDSI texture-modified dysphagia diets; also the brewing term for malt soaked in hot water.
Maslenitsa (Масленица)
Maslenitsa (Масленица), or Butter Week, is the East Slavic pre-Lenten festival of blini, effigy burning, and Forgiveness Sunday, aligned with Orthodox Cheesefare Week before Great Lent.
Mason jar
Mason jar, the threaded glass canning jar patented by John Landis Mason in 1858; also called Ball or Kerr jars. Key facts: 1858 patent, two-piece self-sealing lid, Ball and Kerr both owned by Newell Brands, standard 2-3/8 inch regular-mouth opening.
Maß
Maß: German noun for a measure, unit, or extent (das Maß, plural Maße), and in feminine form die Maß the Bavarian one-liter beer serving in a Maßkrug, historically 1.069 liters, now the Oktoberfest standard.
Massaman curry
Massaman curry (แกงมัสมั่น, gaeng massaman), also called matsaman or Muslim curry, is a mild, sweet-sour Thai coconut curry with beef or chicken, potatoes, peanuts, tamarind, and warm dried spices, of Muslim origin in southern Thailand.
Massimo Bottura
Massimo Bottura (born 1962), Italian chef of Modena's three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana, twice No.1 in the World's 50 Best, and founder with Lara Gilmore of Food for Soul, the anti-food-waste refettorio network.
MasterChef
MasterChef is a competitive cooking TV format created by Franc Roddam, launched on BBC One in 1990 and rebooted in 2005. Adapted in over 70 territories, it holds the Guinness World Record as the most successful cookery format, with spin-offs like Celebrity and Junior MasterChef.
MasterChef (American TV series)
MasterChef (US) is a FOX cooking competition, premiered July 2010, hosted by Gordon Ramsay with Joe Bastianich and Tiffany Derry, in which amateur cooks compete for $250,000 and the MasterChef title.
MasterChef (British TV series)
MasterChef (British TV series), BBC One cooking competition launched 1990 with Lloyd Grossman, revived 2005 with Gregg Wallace and John Torode; global format sold to 200+ territories; hosts replaced in 2025 by Grace Dent and Anna Haugh after misconduct investigation.
MasterChef Australia
MasterChef Australia is Network 10's competitive cooking show, an adaptation of the British MasterChef format, running since 2009 with a $250,000 prize. Season 18 (2026) was judged by Andy Allen, Poh Ling Yeow, Sofia Levin and Jean-Christophe Novelli and won by Vinnie Gibaldi.
MasterChef Canada
MasterChef Canada is a CTV competitive cooking reality show for amateur home cooks, part of the MasterChef franchise, airing since 2014 with judges Claudio Aprile, Michael Bonacini, Alvin Leung, and later Mary Berg, Hugh Acheson, and Craig Wong.
MasterChef India
MasterChef India: Hindi-language Indian adaptation of the MasterChef cooking-competition format, launched 16 October 2010 on StarPlus with Akshay Kumar, produced by Endemol Shine India, moved to Sony TV in 2022; season 9 won by sibling duo Vikram and Ajinkya Gandhe.
MasterChef Junior
MasterChef Junior is the children's edition of the MasterChef cooking competition format, for home cooks aged about 8 to 13. Distinct national versions run in the US on Fox, in Spain (moving from RTVE to Disney+), and on Telefe in Argentina.
MasterChef: The Professionals
MasterChef: The Professionals is the BBC's British cooking competition for working professional chefs, a MasterChef spin-off created by Loyd Grossman and Gary Rhodes, first aired 25 August 2008 on BBC Two, judged by Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti, and Matt Tebbutt since 2026.
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
Mastering the Art of French Cooking, by Julia Child, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle (Knopf, 1961; Volume Two 1970), is the 524-recipe cookbook that taught Americans classic French technique and, with The French Chef, launched America's food media boom.
Mastika (μαστίχα)
Mastika (μαστίχα, also mastiha or mastic) names two mastic-resin spirits: Greece's PDO Chios mastic liqueur (min 20% vol, 150 g/L sugar) and the Balkan anise-mastic aperitif of Bulgaria and North Macedonia that clouds white with water.
Matcha
Matcha (抹茶) is Japanese powdered green tea made from shade-grown tencha leaves that are steamed, dried unrolled, and stone-milled to 1-20 μm powder; whisked in the tea ceremony since Eisai's 1191 introduction, now a $4.3 billion global market with unregulated "ceremonial grade" labeling.
Matcha latte
Matcha latte: a Western café drink of whisked Japanese powdered green tea (matcha) with steamed milk and sweetener, hot or iced. Caffeine 19–44 mg/g of powder; "ceremonial grade" is unregulated; demand boom tripled tencha prices.
Mate (drink)
Mate (yerba mate) is a caffeinated South American infusion of Ilex paraguariensis leaves, drunk from a gourd with a bombilla; about 80 mg caffeine per cup, high in polyphenols, central to Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil.
Mateus (wine)
Mateus (Mateus Rosé) is a Portuguese medium-sweet, slightly sparkling rosé created in 1942 by Fernando van Zeller Guedes of Sogrape, named for the Palace of Mateus, sold in a WWI-flask-shaped bottle, and at its 1978 peak over 40% of Portugal's table wine exports.
Matsudaira Harusato
Matsudaira Harusato, known as Fumai (1751–1818), was the seventh lord of Matsue domain and a leading late Edo period tea master who founded the Fumai-ryū school.
Matsusaka beef (松阪牛)
Matsusaka beef (松阪牛) is a Mie Prefecture wagyu brand from never-calved Japanese Black heifers fattened 900+ days near Matsusaka, GI-registered in 2017, famed for low-melting marbling fat, rivaling Kobe and Omi beef.
Matt Preston
Matt Preston (born 1961, London) is an Australian-based food journalist, cookbook author and TV personality, lead judge of MasterChef Australia 2009–2019, columnist for Stellar and delicious., author of Big Mouth (2023).
Matt Stonie
Matt "Megatoad" Stonie, San Jose competitive eater and YouTuber, won the 2015 Nathan's Famous contest with 62 hot dogs, ending Joey Chestnut's eight-year streak; he holds 14 eating records.
Matt Tebbutt
Matt Tebbutt, British chef and TV presenter, host of BBC One's Saturday Kitchen since 2016 and Channel 4's Food Unwrapped; former owner of The Foxhunter, Monmouthshire, and one-series MasterChef: The Professionals judge.
Matty Matheson
Matty Matheson, born 1982 in Saint John, is a Canadian chef, restaurateur, and actor known as Neil Fak on FX's The Bear, executive producer of the series, host of Just a Dash, and founder of Our House Hospitality restaurants including Prime Seafood Palace.
Matzah
Matzah (מצה, matzo) is unleavened bread of five grains eaten on Passover, baked within 18 minutes of mixing flour and water; shmura matzah is guarded from harvest, and machine matzah sparked an 1859 halachic controversy.
Matzah ball (קניידל)
Matzah ball (Yiddish kneidel, kneidlach) is an Ashkenazi Jewish soup dumpling of matzo meal, eggs, and schmaltz, served in chicken soup at Passover and year-round; first recipe printed London 1846, subject of the gebrokts custom debate and the floater-versus-sinker texture argument.