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Burrito
Burrito: a flour tortilla wrapped around fillings of meat, beans, rice, and cheese; from Mexican Spanish "little donkey." Originated in northern Mexico; Mission-style and California burritos are American developments.
Bush tucker
Bush tucker (bush food) is Australian native food used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for over 65,000 years; includes Kakadu plum, wattleseed, lemon myrtle; a $81.5 million industry with only 1% Indigenous ownership.
Business casual
Business casual (office casual) is a neat, professional but relaxed workplace dress code, first recorded 1965–70, spread via Silicon Valley and Casual Friday in the late 1980s–1990s, now the most common office attire.
Bust/waist/hip measurements
Bust/waist/hip measurements are the three torso circumferences used to size women's clothing, defined in ISO 8559-1, central to ready-to-wear sizing since the 1920s half sizes, and affected by vanity sizing that makes a size 6 jean vary up to 6 inches across brands.
Bustle
Bustle: a pad, cushion, or wire or steel frame worn under the back of a woman's skirt, also called dress improver or tournure; defined the Victorian silhouette in two periods, about 1870–1875 and 1882–1889, peaking in size by 1886.
Butcher
Butcher: a person who slaughters animals or cuts, trims, and prepares meat for sale; also a butcher shop. Covers trade tasks, training, wages, safety, history from guilds to supermarkets, and whole-animal buying economics.
Butter
Butter is a solid dairy fat with over 80% lipid, made by churning cream; also called beurre. Distinguished from ghee (99.6% milk fat) and margarine (vegetable oils); main fatty acids palmitic, myristic, oleic.
Butter chicken
Butter chicken (murgh makhani, मक्खन मुर्ग़ा) is a Delhi restaurant dish of tandoor-roasted chicken in a tomato-butter-cream gravy, linked to Moti Mahal and contested between the Gujral and Jaggi families in a 2024 lawsuit.
Butter tart
Butter tart, a classic Canadian pastry with a filling of butter, eggs, and sugar, often with raisins or nuts; first printed recipe 1900 in Barrie, Ontario; related to tarte au sucre and pecan pie.
Butter tea
Butter tea (po cha, bod ja) is the churned Tibetan and Himalayan drink of strong brick tea, yak or cattle butter, and salt, a daily high-altitude staple with regional forms such as Bhutanese suja and Ladakhi gur-gur chai.
Buttercream
Buttercream, also called buttercream frosting, is a butter-and-sugar cake frosting in styles such as American, Swiss meringue, Italian meringue, French, German, and ermine, differing in egg base, sweetness, and heat stability.
Butterfinger
Butterfinger is an American candy bar with a crisp peanut-butter brittle core and chocolate-flavored coating, created in 1923 by Otto Scherning of Curtiss Candy, owned by Nestlé from 1989 and by Ferrero since its 2018 $2.8 billion acquisition.
Butterfly pea flower tea
Butterfly pea flower tea, also called blue tea, anchan, or bunga telang, is a caffeine-free tisane from Clitoria ternatea flowers; its ternatin anthocyanins brew blue and turn purple-pink with lemon, and the extract is an FDA-listed natural food colorant.
Buttermilk
Buttermilk: a low-fat dairy liquid, either the byproduct of churning cream into butter or, as commonly sold, cultured buttermilk made by fermenting skim milk with Lactococcus lactis starter cultures.
Butterscotch
Butterscotch is a candy, sauce, and flavor made by cooking butter with brown sugar, distinct from white-sugar caramel and from toffee, which is butterscotch cooked to hard crack. Dating to 1802, famously from Doncaster.
Buttock cleavage
Buttock cleavage, also called plumber's crack or builder's bum, is minor exposure of the buttocks and intergluteal cleft, typically from low-rise pants; defined by McQueen's 1993 bumster trouser and recurring fashion revivals.
Button
A button is a small disc-shaped fastener, made of firm or somewhat yielding material, that passes through a buttonhole or loop to fasten clothing shut.
Buzz cut
Buzz cut: a very short haircut done with electric clippers at one even length (guards #1–#4, 3–13 mm), also called induction, burr, or butch cut; distinct from the graduated crew cut, re-clipped every 1–3 weeks.
Byzantine dress
Byzantine dress: clothing of the Eastern Roman Empire (4th-15th centuries), built on Roman tunics and cloaks with a regulated court code. Key items: loros, chlamys, stemma; sources include the Book of Ceremonies, Kletorologion, and Pseudo-Kodinos; Jennifer Ball argues a Byzantine fashion system existed.
Byzantine silk
Byzantine silk is the silk woven in the Byzantine Empire from late antiquity onward, a state-regulated industry of Constantinople used for imperial ceremony, diplomacy, and status.
C. W. Post
C. W. Post (1854–1914), American cereal manufacturer, founded the Postum Cereal Company in Battle Creek, Michigan, and created Postum, Grape-Nuts, and Post Toasties; also known for health-claim advertising, open-shop activism, and founding Post City, Texas.
C. Z. Guest
C. Z. Guest, born Lucy Douglas Cochrane in Boston in 1920, was an American fashion icon, one of Truman Capote's Swans, and a muse to Slim Aarons and Andy Warhol.
C&A
C&A is a European family-owned fashion retailer founded in 1841 by brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer, whose initials form its name, with stores across Europe, Brazil, Mexico, and China.
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids: soft-bodied dolls created by Xavier Roberts in Georgia, mass-produced by Coleco from 1983, sold with adoption papers; 1983 craze, over 90 million sold, Hall of Fame 2023.
Cabbage roll
Cabbage roll, also golubtsy, holubtsi, gołąbki, or sarmale: cabbage leaves wrapped around meat-and-rice filling and braised in tomato or sour sauce; descends from Ottoman dolma, with regional variants across Eastern Europe and beyond.
Cabernet Franc
Cabernet Franc is a thin-skinned, early-ripening red wine grape from the Basque country, parent of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, covering 9% of Bordeaux's red vines and dominating Loire appellations like Chinon.
Cabinet of curiosities
Cabinet of curiosities (Wunderkammer, cabinet de curiosités, studiolo): Renaissance to 18th-century European private collections of naturalia, artificialia, and scientifica, precursors of modern museums, exemplified by Rudolf II's Prague Kunstkammer and revived in contemporary art and exhibition design.
Cachaça
Cachaça (aguardente de cana): Brazil's exclusive sugarcane-juice spirit, 38-48% ABV, first distilled in Latin America around 1516-1532; base of the caipirinha, legally classified as white, aged, premium, or extra-premium.
Cadbury
Cadbury is a British chocolate brand founded in 1824 by John Cadbury in Birmingham, famous for Dairy Milk (1905), Bournville, Creme Egg, and Flake. Owned by Mondelez International since the 2010 Kraft takeover, its top markets are the UK, Australia, and India.
Cadbury Creme Egg
Cadbury Creme Egg: milk chocolate Easter candy with white-and-yellow fondant filling, launched 1971 by Cadbury (Mondelēz); over 220 million sold yearly in Britain; predecessors from 1923.